


Midblossom

by mimosa-supernova (FourCatProductions)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst and Romance, Butch Princess/Femme Guard, Complicated Relationships, F/F, Fantasy, Fantasy Politics, Femslash, Political Intrigue, Power Dynamics, Sublimating Emotion Through Sword-Fighting, Unexpectedly Tender Hate Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2020-09-03 23:37:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20275807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FourCatProductions/pseuds/mimosa-supernova
Summary: Idelle is on the brink of ruin. Its beloved monarch Laurent grows weaker each passing year, and his children are far from suited to rule: Rollo will plunge them into war, Phillippe will bleed them dry, and the lone princess, Jori, is a disgrace who’s spent the last five years in unofficial exile at the royal family’s summer estate. Tamsin longs to be more than just a palace guard, but when she fails to save Prince Phillippe from a hunting accident, leaving him grievously injured, she too is sent to join Jori in exile, in Idelle’s wild, war-torn south. Midblossom Estates are supposed to be in disrepair, as is Bonsall itself, but Tamsin arrives to find a thriving region – and a princess who’s even more seductive, and dangerous, than she remembers.





	Midblossom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sternerstuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternerstuff/gifts).

> sternerstuff - Happy Femslash After Dark. The full and complete version of the story is finally available, and I hope you enjoy.

The Green Door was closed.

It was more brown than green now, its faded paint splintered to reveal the raw wood beneath, but Tamsin always thought of it as the Green Door. She had no other name for it. She’d never seen what was on the other side.

There were no restrictions on what she could do while she waited, but she didn’t gamble, wine dulled her senses, and Mistress Linden’s establishment rarely contained the sort of company she was looking for. Better to remain where she was, stationed at a rickety table in a nearby alcove with her musket and sword belted to her hip, a cup of barley tea at hand. A moan drifted between a gap in the slats.

She’d been lucky enough not to hear much in the three months she’d been stationed in Bonsall, during which she’d been to Mistress Linden’s several times, but occasionally something slipped out – a moan, a sigh, the tell-tale smack of palm against bare flesh (always, _always _accompanied by delighted, muffled cries). This was nothing new. She’d heard – and seen – far worse as part of Prince Phillippe’s retinue, stood watch in far seedier establishments while he had his fun, and never so much as batted an eye upon his return. Absolute discretion was expected, part and parcel of a position in the Royal Guard. Far less familiar was the seeping discomfort that grew every time she saw the Green Door, like the first chill of winter frost, and the feeling she was hearing things better left private, things that breathed down her neck on sleepless nights. But she’d been instructed to remain vigilant, and so she did, staring into her dented flagon while a breathy giggle made her stomach churn. That would be the woman Jori had picked up earlier, with sleek dark hair and a throaty voice that made everything she said sound like a secret. No matter how loud they got, her women for the night, Jori never made a sound. Tamsin wondered why at times, though she did her best not to think about the princess’s sex life. She still had to get up every morning and look Jori in the eye, disgraced royal or otherwise, and that was much simpler if she forgot about what happened at Mistress Linden’s, moans and giggles and freckled skin gleaming with sweat –

But no, that was a different memory of a different time, and it was gone as quickly as it had come, slipping away like so many grains of sand back onto the shore of her thoughts. She used to see the ocean every day, the vast blue-dark swell of it with gulls pinwheeling overhead, white scraps against a patchwork sky. Now she was landlocked, trapped at the bottom of the map, where the closest body of water was a lake hardly big enough to claim the title. She hadn’t realized how much she was going to miss it.

Another moan, clear as the temple bells. Tamsin picked up her flagon and wandered to the window, the dark sprawl of Cheneux rising and falling below, its rolling hills like waves. There was still light in the town itself, taverns and inns with their torches burning to signal they were open, but beyond that there was only the country to one side and the Silvermist Mountains to the other, a pool of ink to her left and teeth-like silhouettes to her right. Past the mountains, north-and-east, was the palace with its Ruby Throne, a once-fine jewel in Idelle’s tarnished crown. The moon floated fallow in the winedark skies, caught between twin-fang peaks. Strange, to think that less than half a year ago she was on the other side, and now she would probably never see it again. The thought hurt, and she couldn’t help worrying at it, a child with a loose tooth until the hinges squeaked and scraped, bringing her to attention. The Green Door opened.

“Have you been waiting here the entire time?”

Jori sounded amused, but then again, she rarely appeared otherwise, as if life were some grand, private joke that she alone was in on. The handle of the flagon dug into Tamsin’s palm, grip so tight her hand started to shake. She forced herself to relax.

“Your safety is my job, Your Highness.” Calm, indifferent. Smooth as glass, reflecting Jori’s breezy tone. She kept her eyes straight ahead.

“I can assure you, I was in no danger.” A thick rustle of fabric followed. Jori putting on her surcoat and riding gloves, most likely. Still, Tamsin refused to turn. She already knew what she’d see – flushed cheeks, sweat-damp hair, satisfied grin. Her teeth found her lower lip, gnawing at chapped skin. “Next time, why don’t you do something fun? Drink or dance, maybe find yourself a companion,” Jori added, unconcerned. “Don’t forget to enjoy yourself on my account.”

_I’m only here on your account, _came the silent retort, burning on the back of her tongue. She swallowed it whole. “Your Highness is welcome to take a different escort to town, if my conduct concerns you.”

“Not at all,” Jori said. Tamsin caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass, a jaunty riding cap angled low across her brow. “Are the horses ready?”

They were – Tamsin had seen to that, as always – but that wasn’t really what Jori was asking. _Are you ready _was the second question, the first papered thickly over its surface. _Ready to ride back to Midblossom like this never happened; ready to serve like you don’t despise me; ready to face the fact that this will happen again and again, unceasing as the tides? _Every time the same question, every time the same answer, though she never gave it aloud – _yes, for now. _The half-finished letter in her desk nagged at the back of her mind like a splinter. She’d endure, she’d _been _enduring. It would keep a little longer yet.

“Yes, Your Highness,” she said, head bowed, and followed her princess down the stairs.

*****

The Ruby Throne was little more than polished wood, grown around wrought iron so that it resembled a mahogany tree woven with silver threads, without a hint of red to be found. Its name came from the bloodline that shaped it, gave it power; they were red of blood and red of hair, carried on through the generations. King Laurent’s hair, though thinning and gray, had once been the same color as his eldest son’s, fiery even in the dead of night, while Jori’s was a muted auburn, rich like fallen leaves. Prince Phillippe’s was the lightest of all, closer to strawberry-blond. The last time Tamsin had seen him, it had been deep crimson, matted and soaked with blood. It had been all over her hands, her tunic, smearing her armor with bright streaks that she could still see, no matter how many times she cleaned and polished its steel. Sometimes she smelled it in her dreams.

“We don’t know when he’ll wake up,” the Head Councilor was saying, mouth moving, pale eyes locked onto her face. He kept speaking but all the words washed over her, flowing in one ear and out the other like a stream. “As such, his Highness no longer requires a personal retinue. The palace guards are watching over him for the time being, which has given us the opportunity to review your request.” Fat honeycomb candles flickered in the dark of the chamber like stars. Another of the Council coughed, a dry rasp in the silence, and Tamsin blinked, eyelids heavy. Her head swam with perfumed smoke. “There’s been a request from Bonsall for replacement personnel. Given recent events –“ the words weren’t pointed but she flinched anyway – “we have reason to believe this assignment will be a better fit for you.”

“When?” she asked through numb lips.

“Effective immediately.” The Head Councilor’s hand flashed, lively with silver bracelets and golden rings. The ruby on his middle finger was the size of a robin’s egg. “Make whatever arrangements you need. The sooner the better, mind you. The company departs at month’s end.”

_Please, _she tried to say, but the word wouldn’t come. It broke in her mouth like glass.

“You may go,” the Head Councilor said.

The others said nothing. They never said anything. Sometimes Tamsin wondered if they, too, were smoke. She bowed her head, turned on her heel, and left.

“It doesn’t mean you can’t come back,” Kenna had said later, out in the courtyard with a liter of wine. Both Merris and Tamsin had given him flat, unyielding glares, and he’d raised his hands in surrender. “What? If they didn’t actually _say _you were being exiled – “

“Nobody comes back from that shithole and you know it.” Merris snatched the jug. “Let’s not pretend we didn’t see it coming, eh?”

The stag had been beautiful in the misty pre-dawn light of the clearing: antlers branching toward the horizon, its graceful silhouette poised for flight. Beautiful, and even as she’d watched, she’d wished its life could be spared. A passing thought, but it weighed on her still, along with the image of a pale, bandaged prince, unconscious in her bedchamber. He was a fop, Phillippe, languorous and self-indulgent, with all of his father’s charm and none of his mother’s discipline, but Tamsin had never minded him, good-natured fool that he was, and anyway, it wasn’t supposed to be forever, eventually an opening at the front would come –

“ – not like they haven’t been looking for an excuse anyway,” Merris was saying, her shoulder bumping Tamsin’s when she gestured wide. “The prince likes to surround himself with pretty women, and the Council doesn’t want a gaggle of bastards running around the palace. You remember what happened with Vastria.”

“It’s not like that,” Tamsin said. She didn’t bother correcting Merris on the rest, even though she didn’t think she was particularly pretty. All her features were more or less in the right place, and her hair was an unusual shade of black, so dark it was almost blue; she kept it tied up most days, but if she took it down, it fell well past her shoulders, neat as a pin, and it was a combination of these two things that tricked people into thinking she was better-looking than she actually was. Thankfully, Phillippe had never made a pass at her. Even drunk, she suspected he’d seen the value of not antagonizing a woman with a sword. “He never – I wouldn’t.”

“Not _you,_” Merris said impatiently, tilting her head back so she could watch Tamsin climb, swaying, to her feet. “Them. They’re glad to be rid of you.”

“Merris – “

“They’ve never had a woman on the Council.” Merris’ eyes bored into hers. “Never. Not once, in almost a century.”

“_Merris,_” Kenna said again, futile.

“Did you know that?”

“I have to go,” Tamsin said, and the bitterness in it surprised even her. “I’m supposed to be making arrangements.”

‘Making arrangements’ had, as it turned out, been a pathetic affair – a single bag packed, a single letter written out of obligation that would probably go unread. Her entire life was the palace. Had been for almost a decade, and now it was gone, simple as wiping chalk from a slate. Just another reminder that something taken away so easily was never hers to begin with.

_When will he wake, _she’d asked the healer in the cream-and-scarlet cave of his chambers, but what she’d really meant was _how did this happen; _the prince was an experienced rider who spent much of his leisure time in the countryside, his favorite mount a docile chestnut mare. What had she heard, that caused her to startle? Why had he lost his grip and fallen? Tamsin had scoured her memories time and time again and found nothing. Just the wind rushing, a whinny and a cry followed by the sickening crack of bone against rock, and then silence. She’d only looked away for a second.

A knock came, firm at the door. Tamsin started, and the rocky coasts and forests of the capital disappeared, replaced by an uninterrupted view of Bonsall’s flat summerland plains. Something hot and shameful pricked at her eyes, and she wiped them hurriedly, turning from the window. “Yes?”

“You’re dressed. Good.” Aelric was one of the guards who’d been stationed in Midblossom the longest, round-faced and placid with a ring of scruffy brown hair surrounding his bald pate. Tamsin sometimes wondered what he’d done, to land himself there. “Her Highness wants an escort to temple.”

“She goes to temple?” Tamsin asked before she could stop herself. In three months’ time, Jorri had never taken her anywhere. Just to Mistress Linden’s, and the Green Door. Aelric blinked, slow and contemplative.

“Aye. She wants you out front in ten.”

“Of course.”

He waited, hovering for a moment longer, but she held her ground, and after an uncomfortable pause he cracked and left, shutting the door behind him. Tamsin returned her gaze to the window, where the wheat fields rippled thick and golden beneath a merciless blue sky.

There were no two ways about it. Bonsall was alive.

*****

“You’re running late.”

It was sweltering outside, and the temple was a mile’s walk from Midblossom, situated in a grove overlooking the countryside. Tamsin had thought herself in shape, but Prince Phillippe preferred leisurely pursuits like riding and drinking to more taxing pastimes, and it had been a long time since she’d traveled by foot instead of horseback. She’d arrived, puffing, at the top of the hill to find Jori waiting for her, shaded by the branches of a young olive tree.

“My apologies, Your Highness.” She straightened up, brushing an errant hank of hair from her eyes, and took in the temple, worn down to its stately bones by weather and time. Its roof had long been torn away, replaced by the lush green canopy of the oak tree growing in the center of the room, its enormous trunk visible through the open archway. Ivy clung to its pillars and walls like a lover. “I didn’t know you were Ilevishan.”

“Everyone is, out here.” Jori spat out the mint leaves she’d been chewing, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Summer had left her tanned and freckled, the hair falling over her brow threaded with gold. She was wearing the same thing as the farmers gathering in front of the temple entranceway, a sleeveless linen shift and loose breeches with a floppy, wide-brimmed hat to keep the sun out of her eyes. Her shoulders were broad and brown, bare arms corded with muscle. She’d cut her hair too, curls chopped carelessly short and mussed, her proud hawk’s beak of a nose still peeling from a previous sunburn; she was unrecognizable as the princess from five years ago that still haunted Tamsin’s memories, growing fainter by the day. It was as if the woman she’d known back then had never existed, and this new Jori had simply been wearing her like a skin, waiting to shed her and emerge. Her own flesh prickled, not unpleasantly. Jori’s eyes met hers for a moment, then slid away again, flickering towards the crowd. “I go most weeks.”

“Do you normally ask for an escort?”

“Normally? No.”

“Then why make me chase you all the way up here?”

Sweaty and cross, her words came out with an edge, and she tensed – to question a member of the royal family was unspeakably rude. King Laurent had grown permissive in age and sickness, and Phillippe had usually been too drunk to care, but she’d seen Crown Prince Rollo assault members of his guard for less. Jori shrugged one shoulder, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“I thought you might find it interesting.” The temple bells chimed again, silvery. There were dozens of them, tied to the boughs of the sacred oak and left to sway in the breeze. “Besides, I’ll need one back to the estate, now that you’re here.”

More and more people were starting to gather, large extended families carting their children up the hill and farmers riding their mules, villagers and pilgrims traveling on foot, and the priestess had emerged from the interior to greet them, her woven robes dappled green with leaves and moss. The service was due to begin. Jori’s eyebrows raised, expectant.

“Fine,” Tamsin said, “fine,” blotting at her forehead with her sleeve, not nearly as irritated as she ought to have been, and let Jori lead her inside.

It was cooler there, at least, shaded by the canopy and remaining stone, with rows of pews carved from fallen trees. Jori sat in front, while Tamsin leaned against the far wall in the back, out of the way. It was crowded, and there were too many smells, hay and sweat and the faint remnants of mule shit assailing her nostrils, but there was a sort of reverence in the air too, a hush falling over the glen when the priestess climbed to the pulpit. She, like the oak, was tall and brown, weathered with age, with garlands of wildflowers draped over her shoulders and a circlet of lilies resting on her brow. Talismans hung around her neck, carved from wood and bone with old Aurelyian runes burnt into their surface.

“Welcome.” Her voice was rich as the sun-warm earth. “This is a place of worship, and of rest. Close your eyes, and set down your burdens.” There was a sense of collective relief, like the forest had somehow exhaled. Even Tamsin’s shoulders felt somehow lighter, and she rolled them while the priestess raised her hands, palms to the sky. “Come, let us pray.”

Tamsin knew a bit about the Ilevishan tradition, though it wasn’t practiced anywhere else in Idelle – most citizens of the capital saw it as superstition, a holdover from Bonsall’s Elinese origins, and practiced Deloria if they practiced anything at all – but she’d never considered that she might attend a Gathering herself. She kept her eyes half-open while the priestess brewed what appeared to be a pot of ceremonial tea on the altar and sang, crushing unfamiliar, fragrant herbs into boiling water. Ilevisha, or so the song went, was nature and all its dualities. Life and death, creation and destruction, cruelty and compassion – all encompassed, all given their due. Ilevisha was all genders and none of them, all nations, all _bodies_, born of every single living thing had ever drawn breath. Ilevisha was the whole of existence, the experience of life itself. There was more, but the words had already begun to blur together, dream-like, and Tamsin’s attention had strayed. If she tilted her head just right, she could make out the freckled nape of Jori’s neck, and the shorn copper curls just above. The heat clung to her, heavy on her eyelids, but still she looked. A gnat buzzed in her ear, then flitted away.

The last time they’d seen each other, Jori’s hair had been long like her brothers’, curling into a thick mane that fell to her waist. None of them had been allowed to cut that sacred red hair but once every seven years, and never above the shoulders, as it was proof of their legitimacy and inborn right to rule. Even the king still kept his long, though illness had leeched much of its color and left him half-bald. Jori had hated it. She’d cried and pleaded, but not a soul would let her cut it, and so she’d taken to tying it into a messy knot atop her head that she stuffed under a cap whenever she went riding. Tamsin wasn’t surprised she’d cut it, but it still jarred her in a way she couldn’t explain, to see the soft, unguarded nape of Jori’s neck, exposed now as she bent her head in prayer. Unconsciously, Tamsin lifted her hand to the back of her neck, covered by her plait, and her gloved fingertips came to rest on bare skin. It sent an odd little shiver through her, her breath quickening. She dropped her hand.

When the priestess’s song was finished, she poured some of the tea into the earth at her feet and recited a different blessing in old Aurelyian that everyone but Tamsin seemed to understand, a dozen voices murmuring a response in the same. Then came a ceremonial vessel, molded from clay and decorated with runes and patterned oak leaves; liquid poured, steaming, into its embrace. The priestess carried it from person to person, lifting it one by one to their lips. Tamsin watched Jori tilt her head back to drink, and whatever the priestess’s question, it was lost to the wind. The proud line of Jori’s throat bobbed when she swallowed.

Surely not, Tamsin thought. She was a stranger here – surely they wouldn’t ask her to partake. And yet it wasn’t long before the priestess stood before her, offering the jar. Her eyes were the same color as the clay.

“Ilevisha knows no strangers,” she said, and her smile grew knowing when Tamsin startled. “Come, celebrate life’s bounty.”

The jar was nearly empty, reeking of moss and roses. Over the priestess’s shoulder, Tamsin caught a glimpse of Jori, twisted around in the pew to watch her. Her eyes were half-lidded, her lips still wet, and the tip of her tongue dabbed at the corner of her mouth, so fast Tamsin thought she’d imagined it at first. She nodded and closed her eyes, shutting out everything but the bitter, floral liquid trickling into her mouth, strong enough to bring tears to her eyes. Her head spun, and she almost spat it out in a moment of panic, but Jori’s face was burned into the backs of her eyelids, watching. Waiting.

She swallowed.

*****

The walk back to Midblossom was hotter than it had been on the way to the temple, but it was downhill at least, and Jori leant Tamsin her hat, to shield her face from the sun. Even in the shade, it was too bright to protest. They kept to the side of the road, dust stirring around their ankles and rising in the wake of hooves and cart wheels as the worshippers passed them by. The countryside unspooled before them, green and brown and gold. Larks and thrushes cooed to one another from the treetops, birdsong thick in the air, and a gaggle of laughing children kicked a woven ball around as they chased after their parents, outlines growing blurry in the distance. Tamsin took it all in beneath her broad-brimmed hat, uneasiness trickling down her spine in the wake of sweat. All of this was wrong. How was there so much life, when Bonsall was supposedly a death sentence for so many? No exiled noble was supposed to have lasted more than a few years, even with their estates and guards. Not so close to the border, where Elinese raiders thirsted for Idellian blood.

But then again, Jori had never been officially exiled – King Laurent was far too soft on his only daughter for that to come about. It was simply known that she’d been sent to the summer estates indefinitely, ‘for her health’. There were rumors, of course, but no one knew what had really transpired, save the king, the Council, and Jori herself.

And Tamsin.

“_Tamsin_,” Jori said, somewhere between amused and exasperated. “Are you listening?”

She hadn’t been. Tamsin ducked her head, heat crawling up her throat. “My apologies, Your Highness. I was just… taking in the scenery.”

Jori scoffed, but there was no malice to it. “I suppose I can’t say I blame you.” Her gaze drifted out over the fields, a fond smile softening the angles of her face. “It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?”

“The weather is unusually lovely,” Tamsin hedged. “I was told summer was monsoon season in the south.”

“Oh, it is. It’ll rain later.” An errant curl had stuck to Jori’s sweat-damp brow. She brushed it away with a flick of her wrist. “First big storm of the season, in fact.”

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Tamsin frowned, unsure if she was joking or not. “With all due respect, Your Highness, how can you tell?”

“Live here for long enough, and you start to develop a sense for these things.” Jori yawned and scratched at a bug bite on her elbow, freckled cheeks scrunching. “The staff should already be prepping the estate for the worst of it.”

Tamsin had heard plenty of stories about Bonsall over the years. Once an Elinese territory called Lonora, it had been annexed and renamed, remaining perpetually on the verge of war and troubled by vicious summer storms. Queen Dara’s death ten years earlier had only thrown the region into greater turmoil, grief and anger mingling with simmering political frustrations to become a powder keg. She’d been of Elinese descent, Dara, the first to marry into the royal family – a shining beacon of hope and possibility, with her brilliant golden hair and commoner’s heart. The scandal Laurent had gone through for marrying her had only made the people love her more, and she was the one who’d reached out to the rebel leaders, offering to come together to find a solution to the conflict. She’d been found dead in her chambers less than a month before the peace summit she’d been planning to host at the old family estate in Bonsall.

The resulting uproar had forced the Council to double their military presence until the rebel insurgents could be temporarily subdued, and the king, who had never been in the best of health to begin with, declined rapidly in the following months. The summer the queen died, it was said – though carefully and not without checking over each shoulder beforehand – that Idelle’s hope for a return to prosperity had died along with her. Tamsin had thought about all this and more on her one-way carriage trip south, but not once had she pictured herself helping the scullery maid bolt an errant window closed while a storm brewed ugly on the horizon, shutters flapping madly in the gale. The sky, once so blue, had bruised to a roiling gray, and thunder belched as the upstairs attendants dashed around her in all directions, stowing valuables and bolting doors and windows to their frames. It was chaotic, but not frenzied. They’d all been through it before, save for her. The first fat drops of rain spattered against the glass, and beyond them, she caught sight of a familiar figure in the yard, hunched against the wind as it coaxed a pair of rearing horses in the direction of the stables. A forked tongue of lightning split the sky, illuminating a flash of copper and gold, and a jolt of panic stabbed through Tamsin’s breast.

“Where’s the princess?”

Her words were lost amid a sea of shouting voices. Tamsin turned from the window and waded into the fray, dodging footmen with vases swaddled in curtains and maids scrambling to rescue paintings from the hall. The stairs were less crowded, and she fairly flew down them, white-knuckled on the railing. Aelric was sealing the windows in the parlor, their panes already rattling. He jumped when Tamsin grabbed his shoulder, yanking him around to face her.

“Where’s the princess?”

She was shouting, she realized belatedly as he stared at her, and released him. He smoothed out the wrinkles with a tug of his coat, lips thinning. “Her Highness is looking after the horses.”

“_Looking after the – _and you let her go?!”

“Begging your pardon, but I’m not exactly in the position to ‘let’ her Highness do anything,” Aelric said dryly. Tamsin swore and bolted from the room, headed towards the front doors of the manor. When she threw one open, the wind nearly yanked it out of her hand, dust and debris whipping across the courtyard. Rain was starting to come down faster now, the clouds tinged an ominous green. The storm would be on them in minutes. The stables weren’t far from the main house, but she had to fight to cross the yard, buffeted this way and that with grit stinging her eyes and clogging her nose. Jori was with one of the horses, a nervous strawberry roan, soothing him with her face pressed against his neck. He whickered uneasily as Tamsin came stumbling in. Another gust of wind slammed into her back, and she grabbed the nearest support beam, bracing herself against the onslaught.

“You shouldn’t be out here!”

Jori gave the horse’s muzzle another stroke before stepping out of the stall and shutting the door behind her. “Why not?”

“It’s dangerous!” Tamsin’s palms itched to smack her. She hung onto the beam for dear life instead. “You need to get inside.”

“This isn’t my first summer here,” Jori pointed out, infuriatingly calm. “The horses – “

A crack of thunder drowned out the rest of her words, echoing across the plains. It sounded as though the sky had ripped open, and as another flash of lightning came, so did the first torrent of rain. It gushed from the clouds like someone had turned on a spigot, churning the earth into mud within seconds, and Tamsin grabbed Jori’s wrist, beyond caring about impropriety. “We need to go. Now!”

Presumptuous, and Jori would have been well within her rights to reprimand her. Instead, she clasped Tamsin’s wrist wordlessly, and followed. They dashed across the yard, slipping and sliding through the muck as they tried to keep each other upright. Jori stumbled, fell, laughing uproariously as Tamsin yanked her to her feet, hair plastered to her head and breeches filthy with mud. Aelric was waiting at the manor doors to let them in, and he bolted both behind them as they tumbled into the foyer, drenched and breathless.

“Well, that was fun,” Jori said brightly. Tamsin considered strangling her, but decided against it for the moment, and set about wringing out her hair. “Aelric, fetch us some towels, will you? Miss Dufont will have my head if I make a mess of her clean floors.” He bowed and retreated, and she looked to Tamsin, still grinning. “You can wipe that frown off your face, you know. We made it inside. In one piece, even.”

“You could at least pretend to take my concerns seriously,” Tamsin snapped, stung, and immediately regretted it. Jori’s eyes gleamed. Her smile sharpened, knowing.

“Oh?”

Soft. Deliberate. Sweat beaded under Tamsin’s arms.

“I – what I meant was – “

“You were concerned about me?”

“Your safety is my concern,” Tamsin stammered, and no no _no _she could already feel her face growing hot, heart rattling around in her ribcage like it was trying to get loose. “As – as you’re aware by now, I’d hope.”

“So you keep telling me.”

Aelric returned then with towels, one of the maids in tow to see to their muddy clothes and shoes. Tamsin was relieved to see an end to the conversation, but it lingered long after Jori dismissed her. Meanwhile Midblossom creaked and groaned, battered by a ceaseless torrent of rain and heavy wind. Tamsin sat huddled in her bed, staring at the sleet pouring down the window pane and hoping the whole thing didn’t collapse around her ears. A few of the windows in the upper hallways had already blown out, shattered glass glittering on the carpet like fallen snow in the moonlight. She tried reading, then dozing, but the day’s events kept looping through her head – the temple bells, the prayer tea, sunlight, freckles, Jori laughing, gloriously undignified, in the storm. Her chest felt heavy whenever she pictured it, like a lead weight lodged behind her sternum. Crown Prince Rollo was violent, and thought only of conquest – the second King Laurent passed and he ascended the throne, Idelle would be plunged into all-out war. Phillippe was softer, less concerned with bloodshed, but no less avaricious for it. He would bleed them dry in the end, as long as it meant his cup was full. But Jori could have been the best, and in some ways, that made her the worst one of all.

She fell into a fitful sleep, and woke a few hours later, sweaty and parched. The air itself was so thick it felt like breathing cotton. She didn’t want to leave her room, but there was no water to be found, and her tongue was so dry that it almost hurt. Eventually she gave in and crept out, heading to the kitchens. On her way there, she passed the main hall, silent and bare, and froze. Jori stood before the picture window, wearing loose linen breeches and nothing else. A flash of lightning illuminated her freckles, her sleep-mussed curls, her finely-muscled back, and a flush of heat suffused Tamsin, curling low in her belly. Slowly, carefully, she retreated, pulse hammering, her sand-dry throat no longer a concern. Jori didn’t notice her, didn’t turn around. She was watching the storm.

*****

Eight years ago, on her eighteenth birthday, Tamsin had joined the Royal Guard. The queen had been dead for less than two years, and the whole country remained in mourning, but no one moreso than the common folk. The poor, the struggling to not become poor, the Elinese rebels and refugees who’d claimed her – still they wept, and the pious prayed for her spirit to find peace, while others left pictures of her plastered to street signs and lampposts, flowers and talismans piled underneath. Tamsin had heard the stories coming in from the south, where bloodshed and strife reigned as the border conflicted reignited, and on some level, she’d hoped to follow in Queen Dara’s footsteps, to prove she too could rise above the circumstances of her birth and encourage others to do the same; to foster peace instead of war. Thinking about it now made her sick. How foolish she’d been, how naïve – it didn’t matter that she’d risen from stable hand to a member of the prince’s retinue, not when none of it had ever made a damn bit of difference. The queen was dead, and the world slowly worsened, one desperate act at a time.

It wouldn’t have hurt so much if Jori hadn’t gotten her the job.

She’d been traveling by foot through Idelle’s winding forest paths and cobbled roads for nearly a week before she so much as glimpsed the palace, its red-tiled roofs shimmering in the distance. The journey was much shorter by horseback or carriage, but Tamsin could afford neither, so walking it was. That day, come or so, she’d found a pleasant little brook to soak her feet, and sat on the bank to eat her lunch, shaded by birch and maple trees. Marble towers and red brick walls rose on the other side of the trees, beckoning her forth. There was a chance they might not even let her through the front gates, but her father and sister hadn’t believed she’d even go, so now she was honor-bound to at least try. The brook babbled, cool water rushing over her aching feet, and a lark twittered overhead. She was nearly finished with her sandwich when the drum of approaching hoofbeats pricked up her ears. They slowed as they came closer, cantering through the brush, and a moment later a brindle gelding came into view, his rider already making to dismount. When she saw Tamsin, she paused, and for a moment the two of them stared at each other, the only sound the rushing water of the stream.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” Tamsin echoed, wary. The stranger was around her age, with a round, freckled face and a beaky nose jutting out over full lips. A riding cap covered her cropped hair, and her clothing was plain, a vest and breeches over an undyed tunic and knee-high leather boots – all good quality once, but grown shabby with wear and tear. Tamsin watched her lead the horse to the brook, patting his withers while he drank.

“Are you going to the palace?”

It was an impulsive question, and she wasn’t sure why she’d asked, but the rider looked at her before she could take it back, head cocked. Her eyes were a startling shade of green.

“I am,” she said. “How could you tell?”

“There’s nothing else important this way.” A few hamlets in the rolling hills, maybe a farm or two, but nothing significant, and both woman and horse had an air of significance to them, the kind that indicated proximity to nobility. The rider laughed, though she didn’t sound like she found it particularly funny.

“No, I suppose not. Where are you headed, then? The palace as well?”

“Yes.” A minnow darted in to investigate her toes, then flashed away. Tamsin swung her legs, splashing in the shallow water. “I’m applying for the royal guard.”

She half-expected the woman to laugh. Everyone else had, even though she could ride and run and sword-fight as well as any boy in her village and was one of the few who could read. But all she got in response was a long look, followed by a thoughtful nod.

“Are you now.”

This time she did sound amused, and Tamsin bristled, even as she tried to hide it.

“Yes, and why shouldn’t I?”

“Why shouldn’t you indeed,” the woman murmured. Then, as if deciding something, she drew herself up and nodded. “Right. You want a ride?”

“I – what?”

“We’re going to the same place. Might as well.” She patted the gelding’s flank. “Armand won’t bite.”

“Um,” Tamsin said, stalling for time, and the woman shrugged and made like she was going to mount up, one foot already in the stirrup.

“Stay or go, it’s your business.”

Tamsin’s boots had once been sturdy, hobnailed things, but now they were falling apart from age and use, her feet aching abominably after a week straight on the road, and the palace was still a good hour’s walk north. She scrambled upright, snatching them from the bank and scooping up her pack with her free hand. The woman grinned.

She’d ridden tandem before, of course, but this felt different, like something out of a dream – the forest, the birdsong, her arms around the woman’s waist while the gelding’s steady gait rolled beneath them. Her back was solid, hot against Tamsin’s front, muscles tensing beneath her palms whenever they shifted in the saddle, and when they came to open ground, she clicked her tongue, the gelding’s hooves kicking up in response. The sudden burst of speed sent Tamsin sliding forward, and her grip tightened on reflex, the line of their bodies pressed together. The woman didn’t seem to mind. She smelled good up close, like clean sweat and spice and sunshine, and Tamsin swallowed and closed her eyes. She hadn’t gotten her companion’s name, she realized somewhat belatedly, but she made no move to ask. It would have only broken the spell. They were cantering down the cobbled road that ran parallel to the river, the palace rising before them in a shining beacon by the time she remembered her other, more pressing question.

“Are you applying for the guard, too?” She had to raise her voice over the rush of wind and water, and felt rather than heard the woman’s answering laughter.

“Hardly. Why?”

“I was just wondering.” She licked chapped lips, wetting them. “Why you’re going to the palace, I mean.”

The woman glanced back at her, mouth sly. “I live there.”

“What?” Tamsin said, startled, but the woman didn’t answer. They rode through the gates. Here the path was paved with marble instead of stone, and the gelding’s hoofbeats rang out as he clopped his way to the courtyard, where one of the footmen was waiting to take his reins.

“Your Highness.” He bowed as the woman dismounted, leaving Tamsin astride her mount to gape at her like a dying fish.

“Thank you, Geraud,” the woman said, stripping off both cap and gloves. Tamsin had assumed her hair was cut short, but as it turned out, she had quite a lot of it – a whole mass of rich auburn curls, wound into a wild knot on top of her head. An odd noise escaped Tamsin’s lips, somewhere between a squeak and a sharp inhale, and Princess Jori – for there was no one else it could be – glanced back at her. “I don’t believe I got your name.”

Tamsin opened her mouth, then closed it. The words didn’t seem to want to come out. But both princess and footman were looking at her expectantly now, and after a moment, she managed to eek out, “Tamsin.” Flustered as she was, she forgot to add _Your Highness, _but Jori didn’t appear to notice.

“Right. Geraud, this is Tamsin. She’s here to join the palace guard. Take her to see Commander Chenette, and make sure they give her a spot. I know for a fact they have the room.”

“Wait,” Tamsin started to protest, but Jori waved her off impatiently, handing gloves and cap to the footman.

“If they give you trouble, tell them to take it up with me. Not that I think they will, but it never hurts to be sure.”

“I – “

“Really, you have nothing to worry about.” One of those astonishing green eyes winked, silencing her. “See you around, Tamsin.”

If it hadn’t been for that, it might have been bearable. She might have been able to take pride in it, if she’d felt she’d gotten the job on her own merit. At the time, she’d told herself that it didn’t matter. That even if she did have the princess’s backing, she could prove herself worthy on her own terms. But in the end, all she’d done was prove Jori wrong, and everyone else right.

The storm passed, but not until just before sunrise, and Tamsin’s sleep that night was ugly, full of weeping gods. She finally gave up and climbed out of bed just as the first weak rays of sunlight broke over the horizon, and opened her door to find a maid sweeping up the broken glass in the hall while a footman shook out a rug through the open window. Aside from the busted panes and the back door, which had been secured improperly and torn off its hinges, most of the damage appeared to have been relegated to the grounds – broken trellises and toppled trees, debris scattered across the courtyard like shipwrecks, hedges untidy and statuary disturbed. The cook, a middle-aged Elinese woman with missing teeth who smoked like a furnace and threatened anyone who got in her way with a rolling pin, disregarded both glass and missing door and stumped outside to collect some of the broken branches, declaring that breakfast still needed to be made either way, and Tamsin decided that helping was preferable to sitting around feeling sorry for herself. She went outside to gather wood, and sparrows twittered from where they flocked on the walls, welcoming the day.

Breakfast was pottage made of whatever leftover vegetables could be scraped up, served with rye bread and cider, and only when the household began to assemble did anyone realize that Jori was missing, her room empty and bed cold. A hasty conference broke out over the breakfast table, which was abruptly terminated when one of the stable hands said he thought he’d seen her shortly before dawn, heading in the direction of the lake. Aelric offered to fetch her, but his limp prevented him from moving at any great speed, and Tamsin had caught him massaging his leg discreetly under the table not five minutes earlier, which meant the weather was wreaking havoc on his joints again. She volunteered.

Midblossom was the smallest of the seasonal estates – Windpeak, the insulated wintering home in the mountains, was almost as big as the palace itself – but it possessed a great deal of sprawling charm, with acres of green-gold fields and a lake that began at the edge of the property, its shore rich with reeds and cattails. The day was young, but already humid in the wake of the storm, and Tamsin’s tunic was already sticking to her unpleasantly, sweat gathering in the small of her back. A distant figure was swimming, cutting through the water with smooth, broad strokes, and Tamsin arrived to find a pair of shoes sitting on the pebbled shore, along with a battered copy of a book she didn’t recognize, its title emblazoned in old Aureylian across the cover. Cool green water lapped at the toes of her boots.

“Your Highness!” she shouted. Jori gave no indication that she’d heard, disappearing beneath the water’s surface, and Tamsin huffed. She wasn’t currently equipped for swimming. A few tense moments ticked past, and then Jori broke free, gasping, face tilted towards the sky. Tamsin cupped her hands around her mouth.

_“Your Highness!”_

This earned her a wave of lazy acknowledgment, followed by Jori diving back into the water and arms slicing through the air as she headed for the shore. Tamsin examined the book while she waited, though she had no idea what it said. She hadn’t known Jori was fluent in Aureylian.

“Alright, out with it. What’s so urgent?”

_We’ve all been waiting for you, _Tamsin meant to say, but then she looked up to see Jori wading out of knee-high water, and everything stuttered to a halt. She hadn’t bothered to undress before she’d gone swimming, breeches clinging to her muscular thighs, and her once-white shirt was now transparent, unbuttoned to the navel. Her breasts were small, little more than handfuls, with hard dark nipples that stood out under the wet fabric, visible even at a distance. It was, in some ways, more obscene than if she’d emerged stark naked. Tamsin bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted copper. With a great deal of effort – and oh, she didn’t want to consider what that effort meant – she kept her eyes trained on Jori’s face. “Breakfast is ready.”

“You came all the way out here to tell me breakfast is ready?”

“The servants can’t eat until you do,” Tamsin reminded her, pointed, and Jori pulled a face, raking sopping curls off her forehead.

“Right. Of course.” A droplet of water made its way over her collarbone, trickling into the valley of freckled skin between her breasts. “You’ll all have to forgive me. I’ve had a lot on my mind as of late.”

“Of course,” Tamsin said, desperately trying not to follow its trajectory.

“I’ve told them time and time again not to bother with that, but no matter how much I insist – “ Jori broke off, pinching the bridge of her nose, and breathed out slow. “No matter. Let’s go.”

“They’re wary of what breaking the rule could mean for them,” Tamsin said, watching Jori slip her still-wet feet into her boots. “In case it suits you to take it back later on.”

Jori smiled wryly. “Tradition makes slaves of us all, it would seem.”

“Some moreso than others,” Tamsin said, pointed, and earned herself a clap on the shoulder.

“That’s why I like you.” Jori gave her a little squeeze before releasing her, the ghost of her palm hot against Tamsin’s shoulder. “You never tell me what I want to hear.”

Tamsin didn’t know what to say to that. In the end, she said nothing at all.

Breakfast was a hurried affair, glass clinking against wood and spoons scraping bowls replacing any potential chatter – there was work to be done, and everyone was eager to get to it, lest it drag on into the following day. Tamsin had been prepared to help tidy the grounds, but she hadn’t even made it to the entryway before Jori pulled her aside, linking elbows.

“Ride with me to the vineyards,” she said. “I need to check that and the orchard, see what the damage is like.”

“You want me to come with you,” Tamsin said, surprised.

“Why not? You haven’t been since you first got here.” It wasn’t really a question. Jori flashed a quick smile before releasing her. “Get dressed and meet me at the stables.”

Tamsin had grown up around the stables back home, shoveling manure and learning to tack and shoe horses under her father’s jaundiced eye. She’d been riding since she learned to walk, and even now she was immune to the smells that permeated the place, dust and hay and leather, the sharp odor of sweat and horseshit lingering underneath. The gelding Jori had chosen for her was dapple-gray with ashen stockings, steady and sedate; he looked like the old plow horse her family used to put up when she was small, the one who always ate sugar cubes right out of her hand, and a sudden onslaught of homesickness gripped her, an invisible hand around her throat. She mounted up. By contrast, Jori’s own horse was a proud destrier, black from nose to tail without a single speck of white to mar his gleaming coat. It was the same horse she’d been riding the day Tamsin arrived in Bonsall and she’d come to meet the caravan, riding alongside the carriage as she escorted them home.

_Home. _She didn’t want to think about it.

“The horses here are all so beautiful.” She stroked the gray’s silken mane instead. “More beautiful than the ones they breed at the palace stables, even.”

“It’s the countryside. And the people. Nobody knows horses like the Elinese.” Jori gathered the reins in one hand, guiding her mount towards the front gates. “Most of the them learn to ride before they walk.”

“So did I,” Tamsin reminded her, belatedly remembering that Jori was half-Elinese.

“My, my.” Jori’s grin widened. “Was that a challenge I just heard?”

Something stirred, like embers rekindling in her belly’s hearth. “Maybe,” she said, straightening up in the saddle. Jori clicked her tongue, and her horse gave a little toss of his head, nickering softly.

“I assume you know the way,” she said.

Despite herself, Tamsin grinned.

She won by a hair, but couldn’t shake the feeling Jori had been holding back, no matter how many times she insisted she hadn’t. Whatever the truth, it soured her mood, and she fell into line behind Jori as they trotted down a winding country lane, hyacinth and jonquil blooming jewel-like amidst the green. It served her right, thinking she could have a fair race against a princess. And yet, when they rode beneath the wooden archway at the entrance, her irritation wilted and fell away in the face of so much splendor.

_Midblossom Vineyards, _the sign hanging above them read in weathered script, burned into the wood by some long-ago hand. Beyond it lay the fields, the vines, the orchards and the meadows, foliage lush and air fragrant. Bees bumbled among the wildflowers, humming dozily, and when Tamsin breathed in it felt as if the land itself were breathing with her, the red-tinted earth warm beneath her boots. Everything was so _alive_, here in the beating heart of the south.

The storm had wrought its damage. Torn up trellises and saplings by the roots and flung them, bruised, in all directions. But the people had prepared for the weather, and they were prepared for the aftermath, too. Everywhere she looked, dozens of bodies swarmed, clearing debris and righting fallen structures, chatting amiably while they worked. Jori found the foreman out among the vines, helping his crew erect a tree that had snapped its moorings in the night and crushed several trellises, and Tamsin watched as they stood over the damage with their heads together, speaking in hushed tones.

They liked her out here, she realized with a jolt, watching Jori that morning. Common folks flocked to her wherever she went, with questions, with complaints, with smiles, and she answered and soothed and laughed with them in turn, helping gather broken branches and fenceposts while the children gathered squashed fruit to pelt each other with and rifled through her pockets for sweets. She spoke their language, she sang their songs, and Tamsin was left to trail along in her wake, equal parts baffled and wary. Who was this woman, this princess of the people? The indolent, sardonic wretch who’d spent her time slinking about the palace, mouth full of empty words and breath stinking of wine, had vanished, leaving this new Jori in her place – this new princess who went to temple and looked after the horses and handled the estate’s affairs like it was second nature, instead of vanishing the minute anyone tried to get her to take some responsibility. It was beyond bizarre; it felt like a trap. She couldn’t say why.

Morning bled into afternoon, and for lunch Jori took her to the orchard, where they sat beneath the thicket of trees and ate sun-ripe oranges and peaches until they were stuffed, hands and chins sticky with juice. Tamsin had never been allowed to eat fruit from the vine, growing up, even though some of the braver children in the village would sneak into the orchards at night to pilfer some of the fallen apples. It was the king’s land, and would have been considered stealing. And yet, here she was with a pile of rinds beside her, flicking pits with Jori just to watch them roll down the hill like a couple of children shirking their chores. It felt wrong, to be idle, but she couldn’t bring herself to move and dispel the illusion. She sat with the warm bark of the tree at her back, flecks of sunlight dappling her skin through the leaves. Beside her, Jori lounged in her throne of roots, eyes closed. Her tawny lashes feathered over her cheekbones, shadows smudged beneath them.

“It’s so warm here_,_” Tamsin murmured at last. “Is it always this warm?”

“It is the day after the storms.” Jori yawned, smothering it with her forearm. “They come, but they never last. You just have to make it to morning.”

Tamsin tossed another pit. Watched it bounce, rolling down the grassy slope. “Are we still talking about the storms, Your Highness?”

Jori cracked one eye open. “It can be about whatever you like.”

_I’d like it to be about how utterly frustrating you are, _Tamsin longed to say, but it was too hot to pick a fight she couldn’t win, and the wan little smile on Jori’s face was giving her pause. She picked up the last orange and handed it wordlessly to Jori, who took it and tore it open, shredding the peel and digging her thumbs into the pulp. She offered half to Tamsin, fingers dripping.

_“Here.” A half of an apple on an outstretched palm, skin crisp and red, flesh plump. A smile like rumpled bedsheets. “Share with me.”_

_“I’m not sure that’s allowed,” Tamsin started, and Jori tilted her head, a stray tendril of hair tickling her cheek. They stood in the shade of the weeping willows, long green fronds falling like a curtain between them and the rest of the garden._

_“I say what’s allowed.” She stole closer still, reached out and touched Tamsin’s mouth with her juice-stained fingers, and Tamsin’s poor heart went pitter-patter, rabbit-fast and helpless in her throat. “And I say whatever you and I do is very much allowed.”_

_“I – “_

“I’m sorry,” Tamsin blurted, and then she was on her feet, backing out of their shady little haven into the harsh sunlight. She couldn’t look Jori in the face. “I shouldn’t – I have to go.”

“Go where?” Jori called after her. Mocking. “Go _where, _Tamsin?”

She didn’t turn around.

She knew what was coming, then, even as they rode back to the manor; knew it through dinner, through the servants clearing the table, when Jori appeared in the doorway to beckon her; she knew it, and cursed herself for the knowing as she followed.

“I’m heading into town,” Jori told Aelric in the foyer as she slipped on her surcoat, followed by her cap and gloves. “Tamsin will be with me, so don’t waste your breath fretting.”

“Very good, Your Highness,” Aelric said mildly. “And will you be back before dawn this time?”

“I plan on it, yes.” Jori opened the front door, gesturing Tamsin through into the warm dark air of the night. “Keep the lanterns burning for us.”

It wasn’t a punishment. For it to be a punishment, it would have had to hurt her. And there was nothing hurtful in the way Jori ignored her, chatting up the same dark-haired woman at the bar she’d taken to bed last time, nothing hurtful in the way she leaned in to whisper in the woman’s ear, brushing a stray lock of hair off her face; for it to hurt, she would have had to care. It would have had to be five years ago, hiding in the library stacks with her face burning and her hands over her mouth so she didn’t gasp, surrounded by polished wood and dusty leather-bound vellum, her heartbeat throbbing between her legs. She would have had to witness something she was never meant to see.

_Sunlight pouring through the picture windows, turning freckled skin gold. Spread thighs, trembling. A quiet moan slipping through the hand pressed over her mouth._

It had been so quiet, that day in the library. It was always quiet. So peaceful, with its long wooden tables and squashy armchairs, its dizzying array of books spanning aisles and aisles, its hearth that burned merry in the wintertime. Tamsin had only meant to find a place to read after her shift was over, away from the scuffle and noise of the barracks. To get her mind off the week before, and her encounter with Jori in the garden. It made her feel sick, the memory of Jori’s fingers on her lips, hot and weak all over like she was caught in a fever. Sick and other things, deep down in her belly that she didn’t want to touch. But then she’d heard it when she’d pushed open the door – the hushed murmur of voices, a faint giggle – and she’d known it was a bad idea, she’d known, and she’d done it anyway, following those voices deeper into the library, padding cautiously between the shelves –

_Strong arms wrapped around plush legs, fingertips dimpling soft flesh. Head bent between them, shoulders broad and bare. A waterfall of red curls spilling over them onto the table._

She’d never seen Jori with her hair down. There’d been so much of it, wild and soft, like autumn fire against her pale neck, arms, shoulders, back. She was freckled all over. The other woman, the one she knelt for, was tawny and plump, back arched, spread across the table like a feast. One hand was clamped over her mouth, the other tangled in Jori’s hair. Her dress was hiked up around her waist, and her eyes were screwed shut, sweat beading on her forehead. A moan had slipped free, and Tamsin had known then that she needed to go. She should have gone, she was in way over her head, she shouldn’t have seen what she saw – all those warnings, tumbling through her head as she stood rooted to the spot, and she hadn’t heeded a single one. It had come again, that feverish feeling, like she was burning up from the inside out, and she’d clutched the bookcase to steady herself. Heavy-lidded eyes looked up, drifting to Tamsin’s face. Shining with satisfaction, and something else, raw and ugly and plaintive all at once.

Tamsin had ducked away at once, flattening herself behind the shelves, out of sight. Her breathing stuttered, even when she put her hands over her mouth, chest heaving, and her knees trembled, even as she sunk to the floor. She should have gone then, and still she hadn’t. Instead she’d sat puddled on the polished floor, miserable, aching, wet with jealousy, and listened to Jori make the Head Councilor’s wife come. Listened and touched herself later, late at night when she was alone, still burning up –

“We’re going upstairs,” Jori – the present-day Jori – said in her ear, and Tamsin twitched away from her on instinct. She didn’t seem to notice. Her arm was firmly around the waist of the dark-haired woman from the bar, their bodies pressed together in one long, sinuous line. The woman leaned her head down and whispered something in Jori’s ear, slick red lips forming words Tamsin couldn’t hear over the din. Jori chuckled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. She jerked her head towards the stairwell. “I’ll find you when it’s time.”

Tamsin nodded. At least, she thought she nodded. Everything had gone distant, a bit numb, like it was happening to someone else. She watched them disappear up the stairs, where the Green Door waited at the end of the hall, then turned back to the bar and ordered a drink – ale, bitter and fruity, the strongest they had.

It shouldn’t have mattered. This wasn’t five years ago, and she knew better now. Hadn’t that been enough? She’d barely been there three years’ time, and she hadn’t wanted to risk her job to be someone’s conquest. She’d heard the stories, the whispered rumors, traded like currency in the hallways and barracks. Even seen another guard sneaking out of Jori’s chambers late one night, during the shift change, and it had frightened her. She’d liked that Jori still treated her like that girl she’d met in the woods, went for walks with her in the palace gardens and teased her and took her hunting because Tamsin was one of the few who could keep up with her. She’d only meant to preserve it, not lose it altogether. And then the library had happened, that awful night, and a week later, Jori was gone. Packed up and shipped off to Bonsall like so much cargo. Tamsin had never expected that they might see each other again, so she’d tried to put it out of her mind, tried and tried and tried –

It hadn’t been enough. It was never enough, in the end.

Upstairs it was quiet, windows open and curtains stirring as a muggy summer breeze rolled in. Most of the rooms were empty, doors yawning into the hall. That would change as the night went on. Tamsin settled into the little alcove near the top of the stairwell, a fresh ale in hand. The chair creaked when she sat, facing away from the Green Door. Voices shimmied up the stairs, and she watched a woman with honey-blonde curls and skin the color of sepia pull a man into the nearest room, giggling and pawing at each other. The door slammed shut. Tamsin finished her ale. The roll of parchment she’d stashed in her belt with a little rumpled, the quill and inkwell jostled from the saddlebags, but all were still in serviceable condition. She unrolled the paper across the rough wooden slats of the table and dipped the nib into the ink, blotting the excess, then bent her head to the page.

_To the esteemed Commander Chenette,_

_This is my second transfer request to Crown Prince Rollo’s unit at the front lines. I have reason to believe you never received the first…_

*****

The days rolled by like thunderheads. Between the storms and the heat, there was little to do, and Tamsin found herself wilting in their wake. Guarding the estate was an exercise in boredom – guarding it from what, she didn’t know, there hadn’t been so much as a fox in the henhouse in the time she’d resided there – and even though Jori treated her more or less the same, she stopped taking Tamsin with her when she went into town. It should have been a relief, and in some ways, it was. In others, it itched at her like the mosquito bites she’d collected on her arms and calves. The bugs were a menace during the monsoon season.

Another storm came through, worse than the first, and in the middle of the night, there came such a pounding at the front door that half the manor woke in alarm, tumbling out of bed with bleary eyes and grabbing for the nearest weapon at hand. Tamsin burst onto the landing in her nightclothes just in time to see Jori flinging the doors open, Aelric hovering at her shoulder. Rain spilled into the entryway, splattering against the gleaming wooden floors, and a whipcrack of lightning split the countryside. Three figures loomed in the doorway, little more than faceless silhouettes. Jori said something inaudible over the rumble of thunder, and the slam of the doors echoed as the men came inside. Two were tall and one was short, and they all wore identical woolen cloaks, hoods pulled low to obscure their features. Tamsin watched as Jori and Aelric led them beneath the stairs and down the hall, deep into the heart of the manor, and the short one pushed his hood back as he passed below. She caught a glimpse of pale blonde hair, almost silver in the torchlight. When morning came, they had gone, and Jori shrugged her off when she made to ask about it.

“The hetman and his sons from Kileel, that little hamlet to the west. The storms have caused a fair amount of property damage. They want to know what we’re going to do to aid them in the repairs.”

“Of course,” said Tamsin, who didn’t believe her in the slightest. She had seen their polished leather boots and the steel scabbards at their belts, their well-made cloaks. Whoever he was, the stranger with the pale hair, he was no village hetman. She kept her suspicions to herself and watched the horizon each morning instead, wondering if her letter had reached the palace yet, but as the days wore on her questions persisted. She turned them over and over in her head, looking for a solution, and found none readily available; her only other option, as unsavory as it was, required a more hands-on approach. She thought she might do it in the afternoon that day, while Jori was in the conservatory, but she’d barely got within fifty paces of the bedchamber before Aelric called her from the bottom of the stairs.

“I thought that might be you,” he said when she peered over the railing. “The newest shipment of casks is here, and we’re short-handed now that Her Highness has sent men to Kileel. Would you mind?”

“Not at all,” Tamsin lied.

Short-handed, as it turned out, meant ‘none at all’. There were two dozen casks, fat wooden barrels that stood almost as tall as she did, and Tamsin was obliged to roll them into the cellar one by one, sweating and cursing under her breath. They were oddly light, no tell-tale sloshing of wine beneath her palms, but it did make it easier to transport them. She found some space amid the existing casks, though there wasn’t much, the cool stone-lined cellar already full to bursting with barrels and kegs and bottles of every type of wine imaginable, and let the last one roll into place with a muffled _thud. _What they needed even more casks for, she had no idea, but it certainly hadn’t alleviated her need to investigate further. Blotting her forehead, she left the cellar and trudged back up to the house, just in time to see Jori disappear inside. Back from the conservatory, then, just in time for dinner. Tamsin gritted her teeth.

_Fucking Aelric._

But it wasn’t in her nature to give up so easily, and she waited and watched like she always did; and her chance came a few days later, when Jori went into town. This time she took Brislaw with her, a solid middle-aged guard with bushy eyebrows and bushier sideburns, and Tamsin kept her head down while the servants cleared the table and the two of them readied for their departure, her insides coiled tight with anticipation. She was obliged to wait until everyone had retired for the night, not wanting to risk another run-in with Aelric, but once the lanterns had been put out it was simple enough to slip down the hall into Jori’s unguarded chambers, shutting the door quietly behind her. The matchbook she’d brought was nearly empty, and they spat one by one, fire hissing to life as she lit the torches mounted on the wall.

The room they illuminated was neat, sparse, with little in the way of decoration or personal touches. If it hadn’t been for the empty goblet and dog-eared book on the nightstand, she would have thought no one had lived there for years. A quick rifle through the drawers and under the mattress yielded nothing, so Tamsin turned her attention to the adjoining study, sealed off behind its solid oak door. There, at least, were signs of life – scrolls and ledgers piled on the desk like snowdrifts until they were spilling over on one side, a stack of dirty dishes and flatware on the floor beside it. A cracked window, a faint breeze stirring the drapes. A quilt thrown haphazardly over the armchair, the pillow propped against its back like Jori slept there at night instead of the pristine bed in the main chamber. Why, Tamsin had to wonder, when there was a perfectly good place to sleep only a room away –

No. _Enough. _She moved closer, frowning at the desk. Messy, yes, but if she disturbed it too much, surely Jori would notice. She set her candle down, eerie shadows dancing at the edge of its flame, and began sifting. It was delicate work, unearthing letters and scrolls and parchment without collapsing the whole system, and there was little to show for her efforts besides old requests and replies from The Council and the surrounding villages. This left the ledgers, and she picked up the first one from the stack, hoping to find more than mundane correspondences. The top few had little of interest, records of crop growth and drought by season, but a little further below were the bills of sale and purchase agreements for all of Midblossom’s product, and Tamsin sat down at the desk to read them, breathing shallow. She half-expected someone to stop her at any moment, but no rough hand came to seize her, no angry voice to split the air. She read on, occasionally stopping to glance over her shoulder. Scrubbed her tired eyes when she came to the end and flipped through them a second time, to make sure the candlelight wasn’t playing tricks on her.

But no, she’d read it right, and after scribbling out a few calculations on the spare parchment she’d brought with her, the reason for her confusion became clear. The companies Midblossom had struck deals with were buying wine and fruit at exorbitant prices, sometimes at two or three times what a single bottle would cost in town. And yet, at Mistress Linden’s, wine was dirt-cheap and in abundance. She’d brought in more barrels just the other day, but the wine cellar was already full to bursting. None of the facts added up. The Council, she thought with a sudden burst of clarity. The Council required copies of all ledgers and expense reports for yearly review. Surely they would have noticed the discrepancy, maybe even sent someone to investigate, unless…

Unless the books had been forged.

It was late, and she was getting nowhere, head swimming with new revelations. Quickly, quietly, she worked, copying down company names and monthly totals on the scrap parchment until there was no more room. That left only the desk drawers. To her surprise, they were all unlocked, and she opened them one by one, looking for anything else she might add to her mounting collection of evidence. Nothing out of the ordinary, as far as she could tell: bits and bobs, spare quills and an inkwell, mismatched buttons and half-empty spools of thread, stained wine corks, a carved wooden comb. A letter opener, a miniature replica of a saber with the family crest on its hilt. A scroll with a broken seal.

Tamsin’s breath tangled in her throat and refused to come out.

It wasn’t (_reaching into the drawer_ –)

It couldn’t be (_hands trembling, wax cracking_ –)

It wasn’t possible (_parchment crinkling_) it wasn’t (_scroll unfurling_) it wasn’t it

was.

_To the esteemed Commander Chenette…_

Inside Tamsin, something already delicate and unspeakably fragile quavered, once, like a struck tuning fork, then snapped.

Quiet, oh-so-quiet and careful, she returned everything to its rightful place – save her letter, which remained in the drawer – then picked up her candle and retreated. The candles in the bedchamber went out with a whisper, with nothing but a faint veil of smoke to suggest she’d been there at all. She extinguished hers last and stepped back out into the hall, where moonlight pooled on the carpet through the moth-eaten drapes. How suffocating those sunbaked walls seemed now, the manor’s weathered wooden skeleton exposed at the seams; they lay exposed across the ceiling, the ribcage of some great beast. Tamsin’s guts twisted like eels. She descended the stairs, hand steady on the railing even as the sickening, breathless feeling grew, forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other. No one could find her out of her room at this time of night. There would be questions, and she had too many of her own.

She left the manor through the kitchen door, thanking her lucky stars when the hinges didn’t squeak behind her, and kept on walking; through the dew-damp yard and past the stables, past the conservatory and the old fountain bubbling soft in the courtyard, until she’d reached the wrought-iron gates with their high, crumbling walls on either side. Just beyond them was the road into town, and here Tamsin found herself wavering, fists curled uselessly at her sides. For a moment she had a wild notion to march all the way to Cheneux and drag Jori out of Mistress Linden’s to answer for herself, but even as she tried to picture it, she knew she was being foolish. A guard confronting a noble, even an exiled one, over a letter would only end badly for her, and if she was sent away in disgrace she’d never find her answers. Her fingernails dug into her palms.

That would be the truth of it, wouldn’t it? She was left here, adrift, while Jori whiled away her spare hours in town, drinking and carousing behind the Green Door. No guilt weighed heavy on her conscience. _Come now Tamsin, _she would say if confronted, with that familiar curl of her lips. _It’s dreadful at the front, I’m doing you a favor, _or something equally insipid in that tone all nobles used – soothing, patronizing, faintly amused you were questioning them at all. The inside of Tamsin’s mouth tasted of iron; a quiver of suppressed rage ran through her. It would almost be worth everything that came after, to see the look on Jori’s face when she came storming in to tear her away from the evening’s latest delight. To see her shocked, disheveled, stripped bare of all pretense.

(To see another woman’s hands touching her, lips devouring her, taking her apart, and know that she could have done the same –)

Abruptly, she turned away from the road, away from town, and kept on walking, into the woods. Branches snagged at her hair and scratched at her face, everything sinister in the slivered moonlight, and still she kept walking until her knees gave out and she crumpled to the ground, trees interlaced and leaves so thick overhead she could no longer see the stars. Sank her fingers deep into the dirt, tearing up handfuls of loam and grass and mulch, wet where it crumbled in her hands as she screamed and screamed and _screamed – _

*****

Morning.

The sun was unrelenting, even before breakfast. Tamsin washed and dressed herself in her old leather training armor, hair scraped back from her face into a severe knot. Cleaned her teeth and scrubbed the remaining sleep from her eyes, gave herself a final once-over in the grubby looking glass that hung over the basin before she went downstairs. She barely recognized her own face. Outwardly nothing had changed, but she still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was looking at a stranger. She took the looking glass off the wall and set it face-down behind the basin, then squared her shoulders and stepped into the hall, shutting the door behind her.

Breakfast was a quiet affair, no one eager to begin their duties for the day; eventually Moreau, the butler, ordered everyone to finish up and get a move on, and Tamsin excused herself from her half-full plate before anyone noticed. She hadn’t been able to choke down more than a few bites.

Hot as it was inside, it was worse out – no wind rustled the trees that bordered the estate, and as soon as she stepped through the door, the heat closed around her like a damp fist. Jori was out in the training yard, testing her sword against one of the straw dummies mounted on a rotating platform. Tamsin let her complete her forms first, watched her blade flash white-hot in the sunlight. When Jori finally slowed, breathing heavy, to wipe her brow, she spoke.

“Surely Your Highness could do with a more challenging opponent than that.”

It was gratifying to see Jori startle at her voice, shoulders tensing. They resettled before she turned around, red-faced and nose scrunched, squinting into the sun. Sweat dampened her curls and glittered on her forehead, a crown of diamond and glass. Her lip curled faintly.

“Are you offering?”

The heat made the dull practice sword even heavier, its leather-bound hilt rough in Tamsin’s hand. She went through her forms every day, but it had been a long time since she’d faced a live opponent. She and Jori circled each other in the center of the yard, dust stirred by their wary feet.

“Didn’t expect to see you out here,” Jori said, and her blade flickered out like a serpent’s tongue, testing Tamsin’s range. She blocked it easily. “You always used to turn me down whenever I’d ask you to spar.”

A memory broke loose, bobbing to the surface: the blunt edge of a blade to Jori’s soft throat, the heat of her body where Tamsin had her pinned against one of the columns, her sword laying on the cobblestones nearby. The short-lived triumph burning inside her, and how quickly it became something else when Jori smirked at her, tilting her chin to expose more of her neck. _“Well,” _she’d said. _“To the victor go the spoils…” _

She shook it lose, refocused. Her sword clanged against Jori’s, glanced away. “There were other guards more suited to the task.”

“Oh, come now. False modesty benefits no one.” Circle, lunge, parry. Circle again. “You’ve always been more than a match for me.”

_Don’t speak of me like you know me, _Tamsin wanted to protest, but she knew it wasn’t true, even as the thought crossed her mind. They knew each other too well, if anything. Jori feinted, slashing diagonally, and Tamsin was forced to dodge back to avoid it, her footing uneven. This time Jori’s blade skidded along the length of hers, steel shrieking, and she put her weight behind it, sending Tamsin stumbling to the side once more.

“You’re better than this,” she snapped, pressing forward. “Quit mucking about and _challenge _me!”

Tamsin punched her.

It was poorly-aimed, a glancing blow with her off-hand, but it sent Jori staggering all the same, and a well-placed sweep of her leg put her on her backside, sword clattering to the ground beside her. Tamsin clutched hers tight, panting. Jori looked up at her, hand shielding her eyes, and a grin oozed across her face, spreading slow as honey. Her teeth were red where they’d cut into her lip.

“That’s more like it.”

She’d misremembered how fast Jori was. How deceptively supine she seemed, until it suited her not to be. Quick as a wink, she got her legs underneath her and sprung forward like a white-tailed polecat, catching Tamsin full around the middle. They hit the ground and rolled, grappling on the hot dirt and stone, swords forgotten. Hot even in the shade that day, hotter still for Jori’s damp breath on her cheek and the strong thighs locked around her waist, the hands seeking to pin her wrists. A bolt of fury lanced through her. To be so weak, so infirm that the woman she’d been tasked to protect could overpower her – she wouldn’t suffer it. _Couldn’t _suffer it. Not now, not with this woman, who could rankle her for days with a well-placed word. The muscles in her thighs bunched, hips twisting like she meant to buck Jori off, and when Jori’s grip loosened Tamsin threw all her weight in the opposite direction, bringing the flat of her elbow up to collide with the side of Jori’s head. A vicious, guilty sort of satisfaction gripped her to see Jori pitch off with a hiss, clutching her face. She scrambled to her feet, panting. Jori went to get up too, a fresh red mark blooming on her cheekbone, and Tamsin kicked her in the shoulder, sending her flat on her back. Silence fell across the yard, broken only by her heavy breathing and the faint birdsong from beyond the walls.

“Get up.”

Jori didn’t move. Tamsin nudged her ankle with the toe of her boot.

“I said, get up.”

“Why did you want to spar with me today?”

Still she didn’t move, propped up on her elbows where she sprawled in the dirt, and the hot, sweaty hand of loathing dug its fingers into Tamsin’s heart. She wiped the sweat from her upper lip with the back of her hand.

“Are we going to continue this, or are you done?”

“You seem angrier than usual.” Jori’s eyes glittered. “Why, I wonder?”

“I should punch you again.”

“You should,” Jori agreed, sitting up. “But you won’t.”

It felt like she was going to be sick, watching Jori get to her feet. “Who says I won’t?”

“Go on, then.”

Tamsin didn’t move. Jori closed the distance between them, head cocked to one side. “Punch me,” she said softly, chin tilted up. “If it’ll make you feel better, I won’t stop you.”

Neither of them spoke for a long moment, eyes locked. The wind whistled lazily through the pines.

“Philippe is a fool,” Tamsin said, “and Rollo is a brute. But you? You could have been something.”

Jori flinched.

It was tiny, imperceptible almost, but Tamsin caught it – a chip in her armor. She tilted her head, mimicking Jori’s stance. Pointed an accusing finger. “Instead, you ran away.”

“And so I did.” Jori’s hand curled around her outstretched wrist like a vise, locking them in place. “I am, however, forced to wonder why you’re so insistent on joining my brute of a brother at the border.” A mocking smile tugged at her lips. “Surely _you’re _not running away.”

“I don’t owe you my reasons.”

“I could order you to tell me.”

“You wouldn’t.” Pulse hammering, trapped beneath Jori’s fingertips._ Even you wouldn’t cross that line, _she thought about saying, but the truth was that she didn’t know anymore. Jori was different here. Or maybe she’d been the same all along, and Tamsin had merely been too stupid to notice. The sun blazed, and she blinked, eyes watering. “Why?”

Jori at least had the decency not to pretend – a strange expression came across her face, mouthing twisting like she was in pain, and her grip tightened. “It was unavoidable.”

“_Unavoidable_,” Tamsin spat, shoving her away. She offered no resistance. “You really do think me a fool, don’t you?” Jori just kept looking at her with that same tight-lipped expression, like she was somehow the injured party, hand still outstretched. Tamsin shoved her again, harder this time. “Is that all you have to say for yourself? That it was ‘unavoidable’?” Silence, but for the drone of insects and shrill bird cries in the air. Tamsin’s breath forced its way through her teeth, shaky and rough. She’d never spoken like this to Jori before. To anyone. Her nails dug into her palms. “Answer me!”

It only took a second.

She wasn’t sure what she was attempting to do – punch Jori again, pull her in close, push her away. All she knew was that her arm swung out of its own accord, and then Jori’s foot shifted to the left and Tamsin’s fist found only empty air. Her feet went out from under her, back colliding with the hard-packed ground as Jori drove her down, down, down into the dirt. One knee dug into her sternum; the other pinned her arm. Jori’s hands framed her face. She crouched over Tamsin, blocking out the sun.

“It was for your own good,” she said. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Or to thank you, I hope,” Tamsin snapped.

“No.” Jori stroked her cheek. There was something unsettlingly vulnerable about the gesture, her voice sincere, palm warm and callused as a field hand’s. Tamsin turned her face away. Her skin tingled where Jori touched her.

“Get off me.”

“I wish I could apologize,” Jori said. “I do. Believe me on that, if nothing else.”

The pressure in Tamsin’s chest was immense now, bruising, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. She shoved at Jori with her free hand. “Get off!”

The weight disappeared. The pressure remained. Now it was her turn to lay sprawled out in the courtyard while Jori stood over her, hands on her hips. Her lip had split again, blood welling up. She scrubbed it away carelessly, a shock of red smeared across her knuckles.

“Feel better now?”

Tamsin pushed herself into a sitting position, wincing. Her ribs ached.

“No,” she said after a moment. “Not really.”

“Mm,” Jori said, and left her there in the yard.

*****

It rained later that day, and kept on for the next and the next; on and on until the relentless gray torrent drowned out everything else and sunshine began to feel like a distant memory. It did nothing to abate the heat. Humidity strangled the air with a thick glove. Tamsin spent most of her time boarded up in her quarters, ruminating on her notes. Now that she’d begun prodding at the cracks, more appeared wherever she looked. She’d taken the liberty of snooping through the county records to confirm her suspicions, and of all the companies listed that she’d written down, only one appeared to still be operating. The rest had either closed down, or been bought out by other, more successful suppliers and renamed. The most frequent buyer, a merchant simply recorded as _Y. Barah_, was nowhere to be found – whether they existed to begin with, Tamsin didn’t know. She hadn’t come across any import or export ledgers in her search, as all trade was heavily monitored and thus confined to the coast. The border conflict had rendered any trade routes through the south unstable for anything else. But that conflict had yet to touch Midblossom, or any of the surrounding land, and not for the first time, Tamsin had to wonder why she was there.

It wasn’t for lack of personnel. The manor was well-staffed, and there was a full company stationed on the grounds, with plenty of space for everyone to have their own room and amenities. Aside from escorting Jori when asked and pitching in to clean up after the storms, she more or less felt like window dressing, trapped and restless as the horses in the stables. It left her pacing at night, sorting obsessively through her own memories for meaning. Had her presence ever been necessary? Her training, her dedication, her years of service – all paltry, inconsequential things for which she had little to show. She hadn’t done anything grand, hadn’t made a difference in anyone’s life. Just kept a spoilt prince from drowning in his cups until the day he got thrown from his horse and she’d failed the one task that mattered. Useless there, worse here, and still Jori wouldn’t let her go.

They couldn’t avoid each other. The manor wasn’t big enough for that, not for forever. Jori spent her time either in the conservatory or her chambers, but whenever they emerged from their foxholes they couldn’t seem to keep from bumping into one another. Then again, Tamsin was the only one who seemed to be making an effort to keep to herself. Jori carried on like she always had whenever she was present, spoke to Tamsin like nothing had happened, but in the quieter moments she had the same wounded look in her eyes that she’d had during their sparring match, skirting around the edges of her smile. Like just being in the same room as Tamsin caused her pain.

_Good, _Tamsin thought viciously. She didn’t care. She didn’t. It was well-deserved, if anything.

And yet.

“Why am I here?” she asked one dreary afternoon, holding the base of the ladder so it didn’t wobble. Jori glanced down at her.

“To make sure I don’t crack my head open while looking for entertainment.” Her lips twisted, wry. “Much like poor Philippe, I suppose.”

A shudder ran through Tamsin, hands tightening around the ladder. “That’s not what I meant.”

Jori plucked a slim, leather-bound volume off the nearest shelf and cracked it open, sifting through the contents. She was balanced several rungs above Tamsin, one arm looped around the ladder for balance, and when she spoke it echoed off the vaulted library ceiling. “Enlighten me, then.”

Rain pelted the windows at a steady pace, muffling the outside world. Everything beyond the courtyard was drowned in pearly-gray mist, strange shapes swimming in the gloom. Tamsin watched them out of the corner of her eye.

“I mean _here. _At Midblossom.” She pressed her forehead to the rung in front of her. “You’re not short on guards.”

“Haven’t you heard? Bonsall is a wasteland. I’m in constant danger.”

“We both know that’s not true.”

“Well, no. Not anymore.” Jori closed the book with a snap. “Although that news has yet to make its way to the capital.”

They were on the verge of something. What, Tamsin couldn’t say, but she had a peculiar feeling, like wobbling at the edge of a cliff. Like all she needed was one last shove and she’d go tumbling over, lost to the growing darkness. She took a breath, and stepped off.

“I found your ledgers.”

Jori paused. “Oh?”

She didn’t sound angry, or scared. She didn’t sound like anything. Tamsin swallowed.

“I don’t know what’s going on here, but none of it is right.” It was like being able to breathe again, suddenly – the pressure in her chest eased. “You can’t hide forever, you know.”

“No, I suspect not,” Jori said, and tucked the book under her arm. “Now help me down.”

It had been foolish to overplay her hand, and Tamsin scolded herself for it that evening as she readied herself for sleep, pouring hot water into the basin. Thunder rumbled a distant warning overhead. She’d spent the day bracing for _something_, though what, exactly, she didn’t know, but nothing came. As soon as they’d left the library, Jori had acted like they’d done little more than exchange pleasantries, and Tamsin hadn’t seen her since. At first it felt like she was being mocked, but when she combed through her memories, she found no malice in Jori’s words. If anything, she’d sounded sincere. Challenging, even.

Like she wanted to be found out.

Not a damn bit of it made sense. Tamsin finished washing herself and dried off, winding her wet hair into a loose knot at the back of her head. Rain spattered against her windows in the background, dull and ceaseless. She was meant to be sleeping, but sleep was far from her mind, and so she sat at her desk to go over her hastily-copied notes for what felt like the hundredth time, vision blurring in the candlelight. It made her think of the little picture puzzles her father used to make for her and her sister as children, odd, looping, repetitive designs that made her eyes cross whenever she tried to focus on them, only for the picture to be thrown into sharp relief whenever she looked at it from a different angle: a horse, a town, a tree losing its leaves. The notes were like that, messy and uncooperative, but it was only because she hadn’t found the right angle yet. Once she did, the picture would become clear. She’d wonder how she hadn’t spotted it sooner.

But nothing revealed itself that she hadn’t already known, and after a while the words themselves ceased to make sense, running in front of her eyes like so much spilled ink. Dead businesses, dead ends. All that was left was the elusive _Y. Barah, _and Jori had been sensible enough not to use their real name, which meant Tamsin was no better off than she had been two weeks ago. She curled in on herself in her chair, elbows digging into her knees, gritting her teeth until her head pounded. Unexpectedly, her vision began to blur, stinging tears gathering at the corners. If she were braver, quicker, cleverer – _more _– maybe then she could have figured it out ages ago, instead of sitting there feeling sorry for herself like the useless lump she was.

_There are no strangers here, _the priestess whispered, surfacing in her memory. Tamsin scoffed aloud, scrubbing at her eyes with the heel of her hand. As if she would ever belong in Bonsall, or anywhere else. It was a prison, not a home. But the memory persisted, nudging at her, and the more she rolled it around in her mind’s eye, the stronger the feeling became that she was missing something crucial.

_There are no strangers here._

An odd thing to say – she’d thought so at the time. She stood before she’d quite realized what she was doing, picking up the candle holder. The door’s hinges creaked when it opened, but no one came bursting from the gloom to accuse her of mischief, and so she crept downstairs to the library and let herself in for the second time, breathing shallow. It was nowhere near the size of the one at the palace, but whoever had curated it had put together an eclectic assortment of material, and it didn’t take long to find what she was looking for.

**_Regional Atlas of Idelle, 2nd Edition. _**Somewhat dated, but not unusable. She carried it over to the table and flipped to the index, then to the section on Bonsall, heart pounding. Silly, to be trembling like she was about to go into battle, but the shaking wouldn’t stop. She skimmed the opening information on terrain and population, skipping over chunks of text until she reached _Religious History. _Her hands were sweating now, sticking to the parchment. She wiped them on her breeches and ran a finger down the page, line by line, until it sprung out at her from the surrounding words:

_Ilevisha, also called Y’Barah in old Aurelyian, is both the main deity and religion practiced in Bonsall, due to its roots in Elinese custom…_

Moss and roses. The priestess, her smile knowing. The pale-haired man.

The atlas let out a hollow boom as it hit the table, ringing in Tamsin’s ears. For a moment she was afraid, but no one came. She closed the front cover and returned it to its rightful place on the shelf, light-headed; she heard nothing but the crashing of blood in her ears, like ocean waves. She picked up her candle and stepped out of the library, flame flickering weakly as the door creaked shut behind her. She sensed it before she heard it – an identical squeak of hinges further down the corridor, and when she swung around, she caught a flash of copper at the edge of her vision.

“Your Highness?”

Jori whirled around, half-hidden in shadow. She was still wearing the same clothes from earlier that day, hair mussed, and her face was blotchy-pink in the candlelight.

“Tamsin?” She made it sound like an accusation. “What are you still doing up?”

Tamsin didn’t answer. She lifted her candle, light shifting to illuminate the door behind Jori and the washed-out wallpaper, a pale flash of throat where the collar of her shirt had come undone. Her stomach twisted into a hard, ugly little knot.

“Couldn’t even wait for the rain to let up, could you?”

She didn’t bother to hide her disgust. Jori’s face was only half-visible, but what she could see of it flickered, her eye sparking with something Tamsin didn’t care to name.

“What’s it to you?”

“Nothing,” she said, too fast, and Jori pushed off the wall and stepped forward, an unpleasant smile tugging at her lips.

“It doesn’t seem like nothing.”

“You should be ashamed,” Tamsin said. “Which one of the maids was it?”

“Do you really want to know?” Jori brought a finger to her mouth, tapped her lower lip in an exaggerated motion. Thoughtful. “Maybe you’d rather imagine yourself in her place.”

“Does she know you’re a traitor?”

She hadn’t meant to play her trump card so soon, but anger had loosened her tongue. The look on Jori’s face, finger stilling, almost made her wish she could cram them back into her mouth. She didn’t fear much, but she was afraid then. She forced herself to keep still.

“Who here knows you’re working with the Elinese rebels?”

“None of them,” Jori said, too easily, but her eyes didn’t thaw. “Or all of them. Take your pick.”

Rage flared then, like flint to dry kindling, and Tamsin lunged, snatching the front of Jori’s shirt. Jori’s back hit the wall with a thud, Tamsin’s knuckles driving into her sternum, linen balled tight in her fist. Nose to nose now, Tamsin breathing hard through her teeth. Jori didn’t resist, which only made her angrier, wrenching the fabric up around Jori’s neck until she was forced to stand tip-toe.

“Is this why I’m here?” she spat. “So you can continue to toy with me at your leisure?”

“Tamsin,” Jori said softly.

“Shut up.” She twisted the fabric tighter, relished the grunt that it forced from Jori’s throat. “Either leave me alone, or tell me the truth.”

“You already know.” Still unresisting, despite the strain in her voice. Still calm. “I need you.”

Tamsin laughed despite herself – she couldn’t help it. It was too absurd to do otherwise. “You can’t expect me to believe that.”

“Why else would I go to such great lengths to get you here?”

There it was again, that odd feeling that she was missing something crucial. She shifted in place uneasily, grip wavering. “But you didn’t… the Council sent me here.”

“Think, Tamsin.” Jori’s eyes bored into hers. “Or did you really never wonder?”

Tamsin blinked at her, grasping for words that wouldn’t come. Her head swam like she was back in the Council chambers, breathing in all that perfumed smoke. She wondered – of course she’d wondered in the days that followed, if she’d somehow done something differently, if the prince had taken a different horse or different route than his custom, maybe –

“You’re lying,” she whispered, and wanted it to be true.

“_No_,” Jori said, vehemently enough that Tamsin’s grip on her loosened from sheer surprise. She grabbed Tamsin’s hand before she could back away, face twisted up with hurt and flushed with anger, teeth bared. “Don’t you dare dismiss this. _Don’t._”

Before she’d been cold, words frosted over, but now she was radiating fury. It was the most emotion Tamsin had seen from her in years. It was like looking directly into the sun. She tried to pull her hand back, but Jori hung on, glaring at her. “He always took you with him because you were the best at riding. Utterly predictable, that one.” Her lip curled. “Did you think about that? Or did you just think the timing a coincidence?”

“You’re lying.” Pathetic even to her own ears, voice as thin as wheat chaff. “There’s no way you could have…”

But the rest of the words wouldn’t come, frozen to her tongue, and Jori was looking at her with something like pity now, shaking her head.

“I know. I know you don’t want to face it, when it would be simpler otherwise.” Her tone shifted into something low, urgent, eyes searching Tamsin’s face. “But there’s no more _time, _Tamsin. We can’t wait any longer. I need you to stop hiding and accept the truth.”

Urgent still, but sympathetic too, and it was this that sent Tamsin spiraling again, anger coursing through her like poison. She wrenched her hand away.

“Stop it!” She never would have dreamed of speaking to a noble in such a manner, not before Midblossom, but she was beyond caring. Anything that happened to her as a result would be better than this. “Stop speaking in riddles, stop torturing me, just… _stop._” Jori said nothing. Tamsin’s fists clenched at her sides. “Do you really think me such a fool? So deserving of your ridicule? Because – “

“Of course not,” Jori interrupted, sounding pained again. “If you’d just listen for a moment – “

“To what, exactly? Your mockery? Your women? Because I’ve heard plenty of both, believe you me.”

“Why should you care, then? You’ve made your opinion of me abundantly clear.”

“I don’t know!”

It came out too loud, and they froze, hush in the dark while her voice rang off the narrow walls. But no one stirred, and after a moment Tamsin lowered her voice to a rough whisper, face burning.

“Why are you doing this?” She thought she saw Jori flinch again, but between the flickering candlelight and her own blurry vision, she couldn’t be sure. “Why are you always doing this?”

“Why,” Jori repeated, rolling the word around on her tongue. She looked up at Tamsin. “Having you here, despising me…” Her lips twitched, mirthless. “Why should I be the only one who suffers?”

“I never know what you’re talking about!” Tamsin cried, soft, words thick in her throat. “Speak plainly for once! Or can you not even do that?”

Jori stared at her, and there was that raw red sliver of fury again, sharpening her edges. “Go, then,” she said, “and I’ll find you when it’s time to speak plainly.”

Tamsin knew an order when she heard one. She went, shaking like an autumn leaf all the way down the hall. It wasn’t until she was safely back in her room that she realized Jori had said ‘we’.

*****

When dawn came, it brought with it a pale sun, and soon the rain ceased after one final torrent – a last, gasping burst of defiance. Tamsin skipped breakfast and rode down to the orchard, her mount’s hooves sinking into the muddy terrain. The workers welcomed her help with open arms, assuming the princess had sent her, and she didn’t correct them. By mid-afternoon most of the debris had been cleared away, the grass dry enough to lay on, and Tamsin sprawled out on it, half-in and half-out of the shade of an orange tree. The sunshine was warm on her legs. How long she dozed there, she didn’t know; time itself had slowed to appreciate the day, soft and malleable all around her, and she drifted in and out until approaching footsteps made themselves known, and someone sat down beside her, rustling the grass.

“Here.”

Something crinkled as it was pressed into her hand. Tamsin cracked one eye open to see her letter, scroll resealed with fresh wax. She sat up, blinking, and beside her, Jori sighed. Gone was her sardonic air of amusement, her unshakeable composure – her hair was mussed like she’d been pulling at it, her rumpled clothes the same as the previous day’s, and deep violet circles ringed her eyes. She looked deeply unhappy.

“You can send it, if you like,” she said. “But I wish you wouldn’t.” Tamsin stared at her, uncomprehending, and she sighed again, dragging a hand down her face. “The front gets worse every day. If you go, you might never come back.” Quietly: “I can’t protect you there.”

Tamsin opened her mouth, then closed it. She had the peculiar sensation of falling upward, heart in her stomach, and for a moment she was afraid she might be sick.

“I was there, Tamsin. That night I saw you on the roof of the palace, I thought…” Jori trailed off. “I was always afraid you might go, after that. It’s a much nobler way to die, and you – you’ve always been so noble. Believed in the same things my mother did, wanting to make Idelle a better place.” She chuckled, and it was bitter. “You were utterly wasted on my brother.”

Surrounded by fresh air, and still Tamsin couldn’t breathe. “I – but you – “

“You would have been a better successor to my mother’s work, if we’re being honest. Instead, she got me.” An equally bitter smile. “Not that I’m fit to avenge her, but nevertheless, here we are.”

“Wait,” Tamsin blurted. The seal dug into her palm, grip white-knuckled. “Avenge – you _know_? You know who killed her?”

“I’ve known for a long time now.” Birds twittered shrill overheard. “Biding your time is a necessary evil, but not a day goes by when I don’t wish I’d just stormed into the chamber and slit all their miserable throats the second I had the chance.”

The sick feeling grew stronger, slimy and bloated. “You don’t mean…”

Jori was staring off at nothing now, every line of her face hard with weariness. “I do,” she said.

“But how do you know?” Tamsin heard herself ask.

“She wanted peace.” Jori paused. “No, not even that. She wanted _change. _Things _were _changing. That was why they had to get rid of her. With my father’s condition and her out of the way, they run the kingdom. You see what they’ve done to it.” She gestured out across the orchard with a limp wave of her hand, somewhere in the direction of the capitol. Her gaze shifted to Tamsin. “I am sorry you saw me with Emmaline, that day.” Met with a blank look, she clarified. “The Head Councilor’s wife. I needed to give them a reason to send me away, out here. I didn’t intend for you to be the one who walked in on it.”

“But you didn’t regret it.”

“No,” Jori said after a moment. “I didn’t. I was glad for it, even. I wanted you to hurt like I hurt. To see if I even could hurt you.”

“Why?” It came out as little more than a whisper. “Why would you… how could I possibly have hurt you?”

Women, flirting, sex – they were all a game to Jori, always had been. No different than the pageantry of the royal hunt, to be had for an afternoon and set aside when she was done. It was absurd to think that Tamsin could hurt her, any more than a bird taking flight could offend the hunter. And yet none of that explained the way Jori was looking at her now, soft and hopeless, exposed without her veil of private laughter. Like a totally different person was gazing back out at her.

“You’re the only one who ever could,” she said.

Tamsin’s throat closed up tight as a fist. She looked away until it eased, chewing on her lower lip.

“How long have you been working with them?”

“A while now.” Jori picked up a pebble, rolled it between her thumb and forefinger before chucking it down the slope. “A few months after I got myself sent here, I was finally able to introduce myself to my mother’s cousin, and she helped me get an audience with Prince Goran. It took time, convincing him to trust me, but all of this – “ she gestured again “– is the result of our agreement.”

Bonsall, green-gold and thriving. The small army at Midblossom. The pale-haired man.

“You’re giving it back,” Tamsin said.

Jori nodded. “My first act as Queen.” No confidence in the words, no arrogance, but rather a sense of finality, those green eyes flat and resigned. She raked her fingers absently through her hair, tugging at her curls. “They want their land, and I want mine. An easy bargain to make in the grand scheme of things.”

It took some time for Tamsin to find her voice again. “And Prince Rollo?”

“Would sooner execute me himself.” Jori smiled. It was an awful smile. “The front is dangerous, you know. Soldiers die every day, and he has a well-earned reputation for recklessness. If something happened to him, few would question it.”

“He’s your brother!”

She was aware that she’d raised her voice, but it sounded far away, like it belonged to someone else. Nothing felt quite real in that moment, her numbness a thick pane of glass separating her from the rest of the world. Behind it, Jori looked back at her, eyes cold.

“I’m aware.”

“Then how can you say it like that?” The paper crinkled in her fist. “This is _treason, _Jori. This is – “

“You think this is easy?” Jori rounded on her, half-up on her knees now. Her breath came in short pants, nostrils flaring. “Rollo would sooner kill us all than see me sit on the throne. He’s going to plunge Idelle into a second war against Elin as soon as he takes the crown, and you can stop looking at me like that, because you know it as well as I do. The Council can’t control him, but he’ll do more damage than they ever could.” Her lips trembled. “I’m running out of time, Tamsin. _We’re _running out of time.”

The final piece slotted into place. Tamsin breathed out.

“Is the King…?”

“I received word just the other day.” Jori sank back down onto her haunches. “He has a few months left, at most.” So soft Tamsin had to strain to hear her. “I’ll likely never see him again.”

The numbness remained, but a tendril of sorrow pierced her heart, and she found herself tentatively placing a hand on Jori’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.” For a moment she thought Jori might pull away, her muscles stiffening, but then she reached up and put her own hand over Tamsin’s. Her palm was a little sweaty, warm from the sun.

“So am I.”

She meant to move her hand. She wanted to move it. But it stayed where it was, trapped beneath Jori’s own, and Jori turned to meet her gaze, eyes bright with unshed tears and something else altogether.

“But you see, this is why we have to act now. Why I’m finally telling you all this.” A faint tremor ran through her. “I wish I could have taken more time, found a different way to bring it to light, but I can’t afford it. I can’t – I need you. To do this with me.” A moment’s hesitation, an audible swallow. “I need you on my side.”

Tamsin didn’t mean to laugh. It slipped free of its own accord, high and incredulous. “What are you talking about? You’ve never needed me. Or anyone, for that matter.”

“You have no idea, do you?” Jori sounded somewhere between angry and lost, her grip tightening. Like she was afraid Tamsin was going to slip away at any second. “You really don’t.”

“I’m just a guard, Jori. And not a very good one at that.” Her eyes burned. Somehow it stung worse than she’d expected, to hear it out loud. “I’ve known you to be cruel, when it suits you, but to dangle this in front of me – that I could be of any use to you – “

“Enough,” Jori spat. Her hands were rough, hot where they pressed into Tamsin’s skin. “If I thought so little of you, I wouldn’t be here.”

“I can’t.”

Jori stared at her, mouth twisted with impatience. “I’m giving you a chance to do what you always wanted.”

It was Tamsin’s turn to swallow, throat aching. “I know.”

“Then what is it?”

“I would do anything if I thought it might help Idelle.” She freed her hand, but Jori’s touch still weighed heavy, a phantom warmth on her palms. “It’s you I don’t trust.”

“Tamsin – “

“Will you order me to?”

“Tamsin.”

Fists clenching, pressed tight into her lap. “Will you?”

“You really do think that little of me,” Jori said, eyes shuttered. “I suppose I’d hoped it was my imagination.”

“What reason do I have to trust you?” Tamsin flung her arms wide, incredulous. “What possible reason could I have to trust you, after everything? After all you’ve told me?”

“You should trust me _because _I told you!” Jori thundered, and overhead birds scattered at the sound of her voice, branches rattling in their wake. “I have handed you the tools to utterly destroy me with a single letter, or a whisper in the right ear. Everything I’ve worked for, gone with a wave of your hand. Does that count for nothing?”

“You manipulated me,” Tamsin spat back. The word scorched her mouth. “And now that you’ve told me the truth, you think I should… what, exactly? Be grateful? Be happy just to be chosen by you?”

“No! Gods, that’s not –” Jori tugged at her hair again, like she was going to pull it out by the roots. “You are the most stubborn person I’ve ever met.”

“_Me_?”

“Spitting in the face of your dream just to spite me? I would call that stubborn.”

“I’m not – I haven’t made up my mind yet.” Weak words, but she couldn’t find any others. Her heart was beating loud enough to rattle the rest right out of her head. Jori stared at her flatly.

“Make it up soon, then.”

“Why is it so important to you that I do this?” Tamsin blurted. “Surely you have other conspirators with the same dream.”

Jori sucked in a breath, sharp and angry. “Gods, Tamsin, how many times do I have to say it before you understand? If Idelle is going to recover, she needs good hearts to guide her. Noble people, like my mother, who believe we can make a better future for everyone. I need you to help me, I need you by my side, _with me_ – “

She cut herself off abruptly, and the silence rang between them like a slammed door. Her cheeks flushed red, freckles standing out in stark relief, but her gaze stayed on Tamsin’s face.

“I know who I was. Who I had to be, how I needed everyone to see me, but you – I’ve never wanted anyone to look at me the way I wanted you to look at me. And you never would.”

“Your Highness,” Tamsin tried, but it caught in her throat. “Jori – “

“All I’ve done for the last five years,” Jori said, “is dream of home, and of you.”

Surrounded by fresh air, and still Tamsin couldn’t breathe. The noise of the countryside was unbearably loud, shrilling in her ears, and the sunlight pierced her eyes. She closed them, lids burning. Rough fingers cupped her chin, lifted it.

“So yes,” Jori went on, voice low, becoming more urgent with each word, “_yes, _Tamsin, I’m selfish and I’ve done things I’m not proud of, and I will do many more before this is through, and I don’t deserve you, but I’m asking anyway. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.” Her thumb dimpled Tamsin’s chin, brushed the edge of her lip. “I’m sorry I hurt you. If I’m being honest, I never thought you cared.”

It was all too much. Tamsin wrenched her face away, trying to rise, but Jori hung onto her hands and she ended up in an awkward sort of crouch, Jori kneeling before her in the crushed grass. She made no move to correct it, and Tamsin gawked down at her bowed head, stomach fluttering.

“Don’t run away again,” Jori said, so quietly she had to strain to hear it at all. “Please.”

“This isn’t fair.” She hated how her voice got when she was like this, high-pitched and wobbly, unable to hide anything. “What am I supposed to do with all this?”

“It’s your choice.”

Tamsin scoffed. “Right.”

“I’m serious. If you do this, it has to be because you chose to – no, listen to me. You have to choose to trust me. Or, if you can’t trust me, trust that I want to save Idelle as much as you do. I want this so badly, and I know you do too, because I _know _you, Tamsin.” A note of pleading slipped into her voice. “Like it or not, I know you.”

“I hate you,” Tamsin croaked, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Gods, I hate you so much.”

“Then hate me, but hate me on this side of the battlefield.”

Tamsin sniffled despite herself. One of her tears dripped down her nose and landed on Jori’s cheek, sliding towards her chin. She didn’t flinch. Just reached up and dabbed at Tamsin’s eye with her sleeve, blotting away the rest.

“You don’t have to give me an answer now,” she murmured. “Not today, not even tomorrow. But soon.”

Tamsin didn’t say anything. Just backed away and sunk into the cradle of roots at the base of the tree, wood warm against her back as she watched Jori get to her feet. Her trousers were damp at the knees, the toes of her boots caked with mud. She smoothed her palms over her vest, gave Tamsin a nod, her mask back in place. Turned away.

“What will you do?” Tamsin called when she was a little way away, and her footsteps slowed. “If it goes wrong, somehow.”

Jori spun around, arms spread, palms to the sky, and Tamsin was struck as the mask slipped once more, this time to reveal a full and blinding smile.

“Pray,” she called back. “I’ll pray.”

*****

After that, the orchard seemed unbearable in ways it hadn’t before – the insects, the singing of the workers in the distance, the clutching humidity – and soon Tamsin had packed up and ridden back to Midblossom, where she could take refuge in the cool solitude of the wine cellar. No one came to bother her, which left her to pace the length of the floor, head swimming. Her footsteps echoed off the stone.

It both was and was not simple, if she laid it out in plain terms and forgot the rest: join, or don’t. Continue on as she was, or try to help save Idelle from falling into all-out war. Stay, or go. She groaned aloud.

It should have been simple. Everything she’d dreamt of for so long was finally within reach, and all she had to do was pluck it, like fruit from a branch. But it was Jori offering, so she couldn’t be sure the fruit wasn’t rotten beneath the rind. The memory of her on her knees, not quite begging, dug into Tamsin like a splinter. She shoved it away. Really, what did Jori expect, after everything she’d confessed to? To wipe the slate clean and have Tamsin fall at her feet like nothing had happened?

_If anything, she’s falling at yours, _a little voice piped up in the back of her head. She shoved that away too.

She stayed down there for the rest of the afternoon, thoughts jumbled, twisting off in multiple directions faster than she could keep up. Years of deception, of planning and manipulation and luck, stripped away in a matter of hours. Jori had finally taken off her mask, and the face beneath was almost unrecognizable. And yet, she’d shown it to Tamsin all the same, unafraid. It was the face of the woman who’d gotten her the guard position just because she’d seen something in Tamsin that no one else had; the woman who worshipped at the temple and helped clean up the estate after storms, who was happy to be amongst her people, who was willing to risk everything to stop the war that might tear them all apart. Neither evil nor pure-hearted, but entirely human, smile still fresh in Tamsin’s memory. She sat down on one of the empty casks, wood creaking, and put her head in her hands.

She wanted to say no, and wash her hands of the whole affair. She could pretend she was unaware of Jori’s plans; she’d gotten very good at pretending. But the question had already become clear, and though she’d tried to fight it, so had the answer.

_Do you hate her more than you love Idelle?_

That was the problem with hating Jori – Tamsin never could seem to do it as well as she wanted to.

“Alright?”

She jumped, head snapping up. Aelric stood on the bottom step, looking at her with something like concern.

“Fine,” she said, not at all sure that she was. “Just came down here to think.”

“Fair enough.” He stepped down and went over to the rack mounted against the far wall, perusing the wine selection. Tamsin watched him, his knobbled hands flickering like wide, pale moths in the gloom.

“Do you know?”

“Know what?”

She swung her leg, hitting the cask with a hollow thump. “What I brought in here the other week.” His hand came to rest on the rack, stilling momentarily. “Because I know we didn’t go through that much wine in less than a month.”

Aelric took his time answering, picking up his selection and examining the label before putting it back and picking up a different bottle. When she finally looked over, she was surprised to see a faint smile.

“Aye. Clothes and toys from the capitol, mostly. Dried goods, herbs and medicines you can’t get out here. Gunpowder.” He saw the look on her face and shook his head. “Not for us. Them.”

“Them?”

“The common folk. Her Highness sees to all of it, as long as she can do so safely.” He considered her for a moment longer. “She finally tell you?”

Tamsin nodded dumbly.

“Either way, there’s going to be a war. Whether it’s between us or with Elin, I can’t say, but Her Highness wants everyone taken care of.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Wants to make sure they can defend themselves even if we can’t.”

It was the most she’d ever heard him say at once. She blinked.

“How long have you…?”

“Since she came here.” A quiet pride suffused his voice. “I was one of the first.”

“You really believe in her,” she said, mostly to hear it aloud, and he nodded.

“Aye, I do. She reminds me of her mother. Not that she likes hearing it, but she does.”

Tamsin gaped at him. “You knew the Queen?”

“Not well, but I remember her. She was clever. Funny. Kind, but not in the way you’d expect.” He must have sensed her next question, because he smiled again. “I’ve been at Midblossom for a long time. Long enough to know where I stand, anyhow.”

“Right,” she said, and he gave her a little nod, tucking the bottle under his arm.

“Dinner will be ready soon. I think Mrs. Odoro is making that shank you’re partial to.”

Tamsin stared. Aelric winked at her and went back upstairs, humming a rusty tune under his breath.

*****

Nighttime was quiet, without the persistent drumming of rain against the roof to disguise it. It itched at Tamsin’s nerves. She’d gone for a walk after dinner, but the fresh air had only made her more restless, and she paced the floor of her room in nervous circles, a caged animal. Waiting for the last of the lanterns to go out and the final doors to lock was slow torture, and she kept having to resist opening her own to check if it was done yet. But finally, finally the faint glow emanating from the gap under the door went out, and the manor settled into its night-noises, on the cusp of slumber. Tamsin blew out her candle, plunging her room into darkness, and stepped into the hall.

For a wild moment, she was afraid that her heartbeat would give her away, loud enough to rattle the floorboards. But of course it was only her who could hear it, blood thrumming in her ears, and she crept along in her bare feet, woven runner muffling her footfalls. Jori’s door was closed, no light visible beneath. It was possible she’d already gone to sleep, though she was usually up later than the rest of them, and Tamsin hesitated, hand wavering at her side. She went to knock, then stopped. Almost knocked a second time, then dropped her hand to her side and turned away. Hesitated, then turned back. Knocked as lightly as she dared.

One, two, ten seconds passed. She was about to turn away again when the door cracked open, hinges creaking. She winced.

Even in the dark, Jori’s confusion was visible. “Tamsin?” She opened it a little wider, still wearing her same clothes from earlier, pale and disheveled. “What’s wrong?”

Tamsin almost laughed, hand covering her mouth on instinct. “Nothing. Sorry. I just… I couldn’t sleep.”

Jori opened the door the rest of the way.

As soon as she was inside, Tamsin shut it behind her, and Jori crossed her arms, shoulders sloped forward. She looked smaller than she was, and sad, almost breakable in the sliver of moonlight coming through the window.

“Did you come to give me an answer?”

Tamsin exhaled. “I think so.”

“You think so,” Jori echoed.

“Tell me what happens if I say no.”

“I can send you east, to my cousin in the Lylle Duchy. You’ll need to leave within a day or two, before we put things into motion.” She drew into herself further with each word, but her voice remained firm, just above a whisper. “It’ll be too dangerous for anyone who’s not involved to stay. I’ll send you along with the rest of the staff as an escort. You can go wherever you like after that.”

“You’ve thought this through.”

The mask was back, mouth contorted into a false smile. “I’ve had time to plan.”

“So I’m learning.”

“Now will you give me your answer?”

Tamsin nodded, and stepped forward. “You don’t need me,” she said, and watched the façade crack at the edges, Jori’s smile disappearing. “Everything you need, you already have.”

“Don’t,” Jori warned, and her voice cracked too. “Don’t tell me what I need.”

“You don’t,” Tamsin repeated, and before Jori could say anything at all, she leaned in and kissed her.

It wasn’t like she’d imagined, though what she had imagined, she couldn’t say; Jori’s lips were soft and dry, parted slightly, and she was so caught up in the feel of them against her own that it took her a moment to realize they weren’t moving. She pulled back to see Jori clutching herself tighter than ever, white as the linen sheets on the bed. Alarm rippled up her spine.

“What’s wrong?”

“_Don’t._” It came out as a hiss this time, Jori’s jaw clenched. “If you don’t mean it, then don’t.” A visible tremor ran through her. “Anything but that.”

“What are you talking about?” Tamsin asked, baffled, and Jori made a frustrated noise low in her throat and turned away, shoulders hunched up around her ears.

“Love is such a miserable business.” An audible swallow. “Half the time I think I’d rather be taken out into the yard and shot.”

She moved like she was in a dream, bare feet shushing on the carpet, and Jori went stiff against her when Tamsin wrapped both arms around her, lips brushing the nape of her neck. Another tremor ran through her, softer this time, and Tamsin felt it where their bodies met, heart beating hard against Jori’s shoulder blades.

“Look at me,” she murmured. Jori twisted around, too quick, and her fingers tangled in Tamsin’s shirt, their noses bumping. She was breathing faster now, every muscle tense in Tamsin’s arms like she might try to take flight. She didn’t say anything. Tamsin sighed.

“Gods, I _wish_ I could hate you,” she said, and kissed her again.

It was a relief, in the same way it was a relief to pick at a half-healed wound – painful, but satisfying, even as a part of her was ashamed for giving in. She nearly thought better of it, but then Jori’s arms wrapped around her neck, her heartbeat rattling Tamsin’s ribcage, and an unexpected rush of heat burnt her thoughts to cinders. This time, Jori kissed her back, one hand cradling the curve of her skull, but the line of her body was so rigid Tamsin was afraid for a moment she might snap in two. She softened her mouth, trying to get Jori to relax, but the second their tongues brushed Jori went up on her toes like she was trying to get away from it, even as her grip tightened. Tamsin broke the kiss, smoothed a hand down her spine.

“We don’t have to do this.”

“It’s not that.” She let out an odd laugh, sharp and breathy. It occurred to Tamsin for the first time that Jori, too, might be frightened by the enormity of the thing looming over them, between them, a thunderhead building on the horizon. “It’s just – I’m not used to, to – “

“To wanting?” Tamsin offered, soft as she dared, and her fingertips stroked the nape of Jori’s neck. It was hot to the touch, and Jori’s eyelids fluttered, a shiver rippling through her. She thought about Jori kneeling again, and this time something painfully sweet bloomed low in her belly and spread through her, slow like honey. Something hungry.

The third kiss was devoid of all caution. She fisted a hand in Jori’s hair, teeth scraping her lip, and Jori surged forward to meet her, fingers digging into her shoulders. It was a desperate, ugly kiss, a broken-levy kiss, and the sound Jori made in the back of her throat went right between Tamsin’s thighs. She’d slept with people before – other guards, other stable hands – but she rarely kissed them, and not like this. Never like this. She somehow managed to back Jori up to the bed without them tripping over each other, and they toppled onto the mattress together, Jori clinging to her like she was afraid Tamsin was going to disappear the second she let go. Tamsin pinned her wrists on either side of her head and kissed her until they were both panting, mouths tender and bruised. Then she sat back to take it all in. She’d spent so long trying not to look, trying to convince herself that she didn’t _want _to look, and in a single breath, years of wasted effort crumbled away.

Jori sprawled out beneath her, hair red-black in the moonlight, propped up by silvery-white pillows. She was flushed all the way down to the open collar of her shirt, chest rising and falling rapidly, fingers twisted in the coverlet. Even through her clothes she radiated heat. She looked completely and utterly lost, laying there, and the shock of her own intense longing at the sight left Tamsin struck dumb. She’d thought she was prepared, but against this, she was defenseless. Without really thinking about it, she touched the hollow of Jori’s throat. Felt her pulse pound, skin hot and slightly damp. Felt the groan beneath her fingertips as Jori’s head lolled back, baring her neck.

She was spiteful and slippery, Jori – her tongue could cut deeper than any blade. She was ruthless in pursuit of her goals. She was proud and spoilt and greedy, by turns confusing and vexing, and willing to discard anyone who got in her way. She was manipulative, enigmatic, and held everyone at arm’s length. She kissed like she was starving. She was the most beautiful woman in the world. She looked like she might cry. Tamsin couldn’t breathe for the want of her. How had she let it get this far?

“Please,” Jori whispered.

What she was asking for, Tamsin didn’t know. She wasn’t sure Jori knew, either. She leaned down and kissed Jori’s neck, tasting the sweat on her skin. One of Jori’s hands hovered next to Tamsin’s head, brushing the pins that secured her hair.

“Can I?”

“No,” Tamsin said, and pressed a kiss to the spot just below her ear. Jori’s next breath was a weak exhale, her hips rolling against Tamsin’s; when Tamsin flicked her tongue across the same spot, barely touching, it earned her a visible shudder. It made her ache. She kept at it, trailing feather-light kisses across Jori’s cheek and jaw, nibbling down to her collarbone until Jori was trembling with the effort of holding still, eyes squeezed shut. Her hands ghosted along Tamsin’s thighs. Tamsin pinned her wrists again and watched her flush deepen, teeth digging into her lower lip.

“You like it when I tell you no.” It wasn’t so much a question as a revelation. Jori didn’t say anything, but one eye cracked open, then closed again, like she couldn’t bear to look at Tamsin directly. Tamsin let go of her wrists and began unlacing her shirt, careful not to touch her. Jori’s eyes flew open this time. Tamsin met them, willing her hands not to shake. “You do, don’t you?” Slowly, painstakingly pulling at the ties until the fabric gave and fell open to Jori’s waist, baring freckled skin. Her nipples were already hard, and the barest hint of a moan slipped free when Tamsin ran her nails along the curve of one breast, then lower, stopping just above her navel. “Like being denied.”

Jori’s throat bobbed. She licked her lips. “I… I don’t…”

“You’re usually so eloquent,” Tamsin said, flattening her palm across Jori’s stomach. The muscles there were hard, and twitched beneath her hand. She shifted her weight onto her knees so she could use both hands to cup Jori’s breasts, and Jori made a soft, frantic little noise, arching into the touch. She acted like she hadn’t been touched in years – oh, and what if she hadn’t? What if no one had touched her the way Tamsin was touching her now, seen her like this, needy and pliant and open –

Gods, but she was getting distracted. Distracted and wet, especially with the look on Jori’s face when Tamsin slid her hands up, hard dark nipples trapped between her fingers. Her skin was soft and her breasts fit perfectly in Tamsin’s palms. She was already panting, and the sudden realization of her newfound power left Tamsin dizzy. She was doing this to Jori, _she _was the one who’d reduced her to this with a few touches and some deliberate words. She rolled her thumbs across Jori’s nipples, coaxed forth an unwilling moan. “Do you want to touch me?”

“Yes,” Jori said fervently, reaching for her again, “yes, gods – “

Tamsin shook her head, and a little thrill ran through her when she pinched Jori’s nipples, cutting off the rest of her pleas with a gasp. “I’ll take my hair down,” she said, “but only if you keep your hands to yourself.”

“And if I don’t?” It came out as a whisper.

Tamsin smiled. She leaned down, their lips brushing before she pressed a barely-there kiss to the corner of Jori’s mouth. “Then I’ll leave,” she said. “I’ll get up and walk right out, back to my room, and leave you here to ache.”

Jori’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her eyes had glazed over. Tamsin sat up and began unfastening her hairpins.

She hadn’t cut her hair in months – it had slipped her mind altogether in light of recent events, and when she shook it out it fell around her in a heavy curtain, still damp from her bath. Jori’s eyes burned into her, but her hands stayed at her sides, curled into fists. She looked like she wanted to eat Tamsin alive. It was far more appealing than it should have been. Tamsin swept it out of her face, gathering it over one shoulder, and her stomach fluttered when Jori’s hands tightened. No one had ever looked at her like that before, with such blinding intensity that she felt like she might burn up from the inside out. Want sunk its teeth into her, sharp-edged, and she slithered down Jori’s body to kiss her breasts, hair fanning across the comforter. Jori scrabbled at the bed, a groan tearing itself from her throat when Tamsin’s lips wrapped around her nipple, but still she didn’t touch. Even when Tamsin bit and sucked, relentless, teasing at her until she was writhing beneath teeth and tongue, her hands stayed at her sides.

It was, undeniably, satisfying – all that muscle and sinew melting beneath her touch, the hardness of Jori’s nipples against her tongue. It also felt like there was something missing. She sat back on her heels, and Jori made a bereft sort of noise, eyelids fluttering open. Tamsin took her in, lingering. Shirt open and sliding off one shoulder, breasts wet from her mouth, hair mussed and cheeks flushed. She already looked like they’d been at it for hours, and Tamsin hadn’t so much as gotten her naked. A ripple of arousal went through her. She reached out and cupped Jori’s cheek.

“What will you do?” she asked. “If I let you.”

“Anything.” Jori’s voice was hoarse, the word scraping her throat. That look was back in her eye, the one that said she wanted to eat Tamsin alive, and she nuzzled into the hand on her cheek, turning her face to kiss Tamsin’s palm. “Anything you could ever want.”

_Oh._

That was what was missing. A shock of desire tore through Tamsin, so clear and sharp she couldn’t speak for a moment. It was fun to deny Jori, to tease and torment her, but it allowed her to maintain too much distance. Too much control. She was used to controlling herself – Tamsin had learned that now. She was used to wearing someone else’s face, to remaining composed, always looking for a way to turn the tide to her advantage, even as the things she strove for remained out of reach. Well, no more. Not tonight. Tamsin was going to give it to her, everything she’d ever wanted, and finally watch her break. She leaned in and kissed Jori again, soft and sweet, and heard her breath catch.

“Take your clothes off.”

Jori had never cared much for her fine clothing. Despite the fact that the palace boasted some of the finest cobblers and tailors in Idelle, she’d preferred to wear her shoes and jackets until they were falling apart, shirts untidy and pants worn at the seams. But now she attacked her shirt like it had personally offended her, nearly tearing it in her haste to escape while Tamsin slid off the bed to unfasten her own trousers. She was naked before Tamsin even had her shirt off, clothes flung haphazardly onto the floor, and then it was Tamsin’s turn to stare as she reclined on the pillows, bare skin drenched in silver. She wore her nakedness like armor, unashamed, and in that moment she looked every inch a queen.

“Go on,” she said softly, and Tamsin realized she was still half-dressed, trousers hanging open around her hips and shirt open at the collar. “Show me.”

“Don’t get cocky.” But she stripped away her clothing all the same, folding it neatly and setting it on the armchair, until she stood bare at the foot of the bed, arms by her sides. She wasn’t ashamed of her own nudity, but beneath the weight of Jori’s gaze, she had to resist the urge to cover herself, the impulse to hide was so strong. Nobody had ever looked at her like that before. But she wasn’t a coward – not anymore. She straightened her shoulders and clasped her hands behind her back, meeting Jori’s eyes. Neither of them spoke until Jori swallowed thickly, looking lost all over again. The armor melted away.

“Come here.” Barely above a whisper. “Please.”

She held out her arms, and Tamsin went.

She hadn’t given much thought to what would happen once she was actually in the room, in Jori’s embrace – it was a bit like beginning a journey and realizing halfway through that you’d lost your map, and still she hesitated, until Jori’s fingers tangled in her hair and she kissed Tamsin like she was the only thing that mattered – that ever had or would matter – and then Tamsin was kissing back and the world narrowed until it was nothing but lips and hands and soft, hot skin against her own. She was suddenly, absurdly glad she’d forbidden herself from imagining what it might be like, before. No fantasy could compare to the trembling reverence in Jori’s touch, the barely-restrained noises she was making now that she was allowed. Tamsin bit gently at her throat, tasted the salt-sweat there.

“How long has it been?”

“How long since – _ah _– “her throat bobbing against Tamsin’s teeth – “since what?”

Tamsin’s thigh nudged between hers, fingers toying with her nipples. “Since anyone’s touched you like this.”

Jori tipped her head back against the pillows, hips twitching like she was trying not to grind against Tamsin’s leg. “I – nobody’s ever really – not like this,” she gasped, and Tamsin stilled in momentary surprise.

“No?”

“I’d touch them, but I didn’t usually – _ah_ – let them touch me back.” Her voice shook when Tamsin kissed her jaw, hands sliding down to grasp her hips. “Never really seemed to matter either way. Didn’t even want it, most of the time,” she added, her hands still tangled up in Tamsin’s hair, stroking through it with her fingers. “Wouldn’t have been fair.”

It felt good, someone else playing with her hair. She leaned into it. “Fair?”

“I would have wished it were you instead.” This time it was Jori who kissed her, lips on her neck, her shoulder, and Tamsin moaned into her hair without meaning to. Jori inhaled sharply beneath her, bit her shoulder. “Wouldn’t have been fair at all,” she murmured.

After that there was no more talking. Not until they were tangled up in one another and Jori was touching her like she couldn’t get enough, fingers pressing into Tamsin’s hips and mouth hot on her breasts. Her lips were soft, her tongue like silk; Tamsin arched into her, dizzy. She’d thought Jori’s mouth held only empty promises and broken-glass words. How was she supposed to know there was a sliver of paradise on the other side? Her body didn’t even feel like hers anymore – it was tired, sick of being denied, and it sang now wherever Jori touched her, something greedy uncurling in her chest and stretching like a satisfied cat. _More, _it whispered, _more. _She cried out, covering her mouth with one hand when Jori’s teeth closed around her nipple, fingers teasing between her thighs before disappearing again. Jori let her go, tugging at her, urging her upright.

“Here, come here,” she gasped, “up– “, and those strong arms hooked around Tamsin’s thighs, maneuvering her to straddle Jori’s shoulders. Tamsin nearly lost her balance, grabbing the headboard to steady herself. Her face burned when she looked down. There was no hiding, not like this. She was wet, and the unexpected humiliation of being so exposed was only making her wetter. She throbbed as Jori took her in with one long, heated look.

“Don’t cover your mouth,” she said. “I want to hear you.”

“We shouldn’t – _oh_,” Tamsin said, and everything stuttered to a halt at the first brush of Jori’s tongue.

It didn’t touch her clit directly, not at first. Jori teased her, licking around it in tiny circles but never quite making contact, waiting until she was pushing her hips into it before dragging the flat of her tongue between her lips, the filthiest kiss she’d ever been given. She whimpered, trying to get more, but Jori’s grip was unrelenting. She held Tamsin in place and lapped at her, soft and slow until Tamsin thought she might writhe out of her skin, shaking and clutching at the headboard until the wood dug into her palms. A stranger had taken over her vocal cords, was panting _oh no oh please don’t stop _in someone else’s voice. She’d expected Jori to be a lot of things, but not this. She wasn’t prepared for gentle. It was more intimate than she could bear, and there was no getting away from it, even if she’d wanted to. She twitched, breathing ragged, and Jori moaned into her, breath hot.

“Beautiful,” she whispered, and pressed her lips to Tamsin’s clit.

A noise clawed its way out of Tamsin’s throat, this side of animal. She wasn’t ready, and it was so good it almost hurt, every fluttery little motion of Jori’s tongue coaxing her closer to the edge. She still couldn’t move properly and there was nothing to do but take what she was given, thighs trembling on either side of Jori’s head. She could feel it building already, like seeing ripples that would become waves when they hit the shore, but when she tried to say _no, please, not yet _nothing came out, mouth gone slack. Jori didn’t relent. She teased and licked and kissed, firmer now, before pulling Tamsin flush against her mouth and _sucking. _

Lightning shot up Tamsin’s spine and crackled behind her eyelids. She came with choked-off cry, white-knuckled where she clung to the headboard, and still Jori kept going, sucking and flicking her tongue against Tamsin’s clit until Tamsin had to tug at her hair to get her to stop, too sensitive to even find the words. Jori’s eyes gleamed up at her, heavy-lidded. She turned her head, pressed a sticky kiss to the inside of Tamsin’s thigh.

“No more?”

“I can’t,” Tamsin croaked. Her throat was raw, tongue dry and thick. “Not yet… too much.”

“Tempting.” She shifted, pressing the barest of kisses just above Tamsin’s clit, and her teeth flashed when Tamsin squeaked and bucked, trying to get away. “If I had my way, I’d do this all the time. Get my mouth on you and watch you come until you couldn’t stand it.”

“Hush,” Tamsin said, face burning, even as the thought made her ache all over again. She wriggled her way off of Jori and flopped onto the mattress before sliding off the bed. Jori rolled onto her side, eyeing Tamsin with interest. Her mouth and chin were wet.

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere. Up.” She motioned at Jori. “Your turn.”

They ended up standing at the foot of the bed, Jori holding onto one of the bedposts at Tamsin’s direction while Tamsin stood behind her, bodies molded against one another. Jori’s skin was so hot Tamsin was almost afraid she might catch fire when she first touched it, wrapping her arms around Jori’s waist. Her breasts pressed against Jori’s back, and Jori shivered noticeably, resting her forehead against the bedpost. Tamsin nuzzled her neck, grazed her teeth against the nape. She’d thought maybe her head would feel clearer, after all that, but the greedy thing deep inside her had only grown, its jaws yawning wide. _More. _She slid her hands up, splayed across the muscle of Jori’s stomach.

“Whatever you do, don’t let go.”

Somehow Jori remained standing, even though it seemed like her knees might give out at any second – she clung the post, cursing under her breath as Tamsin groped her with rough hands, pinching her nipples and kneading at her breasts. At first she’d worried she was being too rough, but when she slid a hand between Jori’s legs, Jori pressed back against it in a wordless demand, and Tamsin gasped as her fingers slipped inside with no resistance. Jori’s back arched and she rocked up on her toes, a guttural moan bubbling up from deep in her chest. Tamsin pulled her fingers almost all the way out, then slid them back in, firmer this time. Jori’s nails dug into the post.

“Please,” she said, breathless, and the naked desire in her voice was like a hammer to the chest. “Please, Tamsin – “

She didn’t say what she wanted. Tamsin thought she already knew. Jori ended up with her legs spread wide as Tamsin drove three fingers into her, fucking her at a steady pace. Her other arm was looped around Jori’s hip, free hand rubbing her clit. Not easy to coordinate her movements, but worth it, to see the sweat glistening on Jori’s skin and to feel her clench with each thrust, her bowed head and the ridges of her spine. Tamsin bit her shoulder, curled her fingers, stroked her roughly until it wrenched a whimper from her throat. Licked the marks her teeth left behind and felt Jori shiver, fluttering around her. She’d thought her earlier orgasm would relieve some of the ache, but it seemed to have sharpened it instead, whetstone to blade; she was inside of Jori and it still wasn’t enough. She crowded closer, pressed deeper, and Jori didn’t protest, rocking back to meet each thrust. Another moan echoed around the bedchamber when Tamsin’s other hand found her clit again, gentler this time.

“Don’t stop,” she pleaded, and Tamsin was tempted to deny her, if only to see what she might do. She slowed instead, crooking her fingers to rub at the spot that made Jori go up on her toes, and Jori’s back arched again. “F—_ah _– faster – “

Tamsin ignored her, pulling her fingers back like she was going to slip free, then pushed them in again as slow as she pleased, a fraction at a time. Did it again and again until Jori was quivering and shaking her head frantically, even as she pushed herself against Tamsin’s palm. “I can’t, I can’t – “

“You can’t what?”

“Too much, it’s too much,” she panted, hoarse. “I can’t – it won’t work like this – “

“Yes you can.” Tamsin kissed the space between her shoulder blades, nuzzling into sweat-slick skin. Stroked and petted and teased with both hands, never once speeding up or varying her pace, until Jori’s breathing pitched higher and she scrabbled against the bedpost like she was trying to climb it, all her muscles tensing at once.

“Gods, it’s – I’m – “ Her voice broke. Tamsin kissed the back of her neck.

“It’s alright,” she murmured, feeling unaccountably tender. “Go on, show me.”

For a moment they hovered on the precipice, the room itself holding its breath; Tamsin pressed her fingers deeper, flexed them, and that was all it took to send Jori over, sobbing out her orgasm as she came all over Tamsin’s hand. It was a long one, like it was being wrung out of her piecemeal, and Tamsin eased her fingers free, held her when she was done. She was shaking too, just a little. She’d never seen Jori like that before, so vulnerable, so utterly at someone else’s mercy. It frightened her, how much she liked it. They collapsed onto the bed together, amidst the rumpled sheets, and Jori clung to her, face buried in her hair. Tamsin stroked her back. They were both sticky and damp, but the thought of trying to move was worse.

“Still here?”

“Yes,” Jori said, voice faint. “Just give me a moment.” Tamsin nodded, and they lay in silence until Jori finally lifted her head, eyes wet. She looked calmer, but her grip didn’t relax, as if she was afraid Tamsin might vanish the second she let go. She cleared her throat. “All of that… was that your answer?”

Tamsin swallowed. “I don’t know.” She thought, for a second, she saw a flash of anger in Jori’s eyes, but then it was gone and she sighed, pressing her forehead to Tamsin’s cheek.

“Well, if this is to be our only night together, at least it’s a memorable one.” She let out a shuddery, wet little laugh. “I’ll never look at that bedpost the same way again.”

_Our only night. _Tamsin’s heart clenched. She didn’t want to think about it and she didn’t know what to say, so she turned her head and kissed Jori again, fitting their mouths together clumsily. Jori kissed her back at once, and it wasn’t long before they turned urgent again, Jori rolling on top of her to nibble her lips and jaw. Tamsin could still taste herself from before, and it should have been unpleasant but it wasn’t. She licked her lips, tipped her head back when Jori kissed her throat.

“I don’t know if I can go again.” She never had – once a night seemed sufficient, until right that moment. She shifted when Jori bit her earlobe, coaxing her legs apart, and the soft brush of Jori’s knuckles made her ache all over again.

“Let me try.” She sounded as raw as Tamsin felt, callused fingertips stroking her so soft and sweet Tamsin almost lost her breath. “I’ll be so gentle, I promise, just let me…”

She was gentle, and Tamsin came for the second time with her hands twisted in the sheets, toes curling against nothing. It wasn’t violent like the first time, not a tsunami but the ebb and flow of the tides, and left her feeling like all her bones had liquified. She melted into the mattress, head spinning, and Jori curled around her, stroking her sides and kissing her temple like she was something precious. Something howled in the distance beyond the walls, low and mournful.

“Stay,” Jori whispered, “if only for tonight,” and for once, Tamsin couldn’t find it within herself to protest.

*****

The Green Door was closed.

Tamsin and Aelric had ridden into Cheneux earlier that day, ostensibly so they could oversee the weekly shipment of provisions back to Midblossom. Once the caravan had been unloaded and the wagons sent trundling along the path out of town, they’d seen themselves to Mistress Linden’s, where they ate lunch at one of the tables on the upper floor and Aelric coaxed her into a flagon of wine. There were few people there before nightfall, the bar mostly deserted, save for a couple of drunkards already dozing in their cups and the servant girl sweeping up broken glass from the floor. Jori had arrived just as afternoon was drifting into evening, filtering in with the first wave of customers to fetch Aelric.

“Wait here,” she’d said. “I’ll let you know when it’s time.”

_You could still go, _the little voice in Tamsin’s head said now as she stared at the opposite wall, shabby paper peeling away at the corners. It had once been cream-colored, patterned with gold designs, but no one had ever replaced it and they were too faded to make out now. _Get up and ride back to Midblossom, tell her you changed your mind. It’s not too late. _She took another sip of wine. Glanced over the Green Door again. It was faded as ever, paint peeling off in long strips and brass knob tarnished from use. For the first time, she wondered how many hands had touched it – how many people had walked through looking for something on the other side, and how many had turned away to seek it elsewhere.

_It’s not too late. _

Another sip. The hinges squeaked, a rusty protest.

“Tamsin.”

Jori stood in the doorway, hair slicked away from her face and shirt sleeves cuffed to the elbow. Tamsin couldn’t parse her expression. She didn’t look any different than usual, but there was something different all the same, and when she raised her chin Tamsin stood, setting her flagon aside. When she came to the door, Jori stepped aside, and nodded inward.

It was an ordinary room, and its ordinariness surprised her – she felt there ought to have been _more, _somehow. There was a window with gauzy curtains pulled across the shutters, a wooden nightstand and a little basin with a tap, and a neatly-made bed that had been pushed into the corner to make room for the wide wooden table in the center, two chairs on one side and three crowded around the other. Aelric sat propped against the windowsill, arms crossed, and when his eyes met Tamsin’s he gave her the ghost of a nod. The pale-haired man she’d seen the night of the storms sat straight-backed at the head of the table, still clad in his fine clothes, and his face gave nothing away. He made no move to rise. She looked to his left and was met with a familiar, knowing smile, eyes the color of clay crinkling at the corners.

“Hello again,” the priestess said. “You’re just in time.”

“Well past,” the pale-haired man said, and Jori shot him a look, lips thinning. The priestess raised one thin hand, bone-carved bangles clinking on her wrist.

“Patience, Your Highness. The princess is here, and she is ready. We may begin.”

“We may,” Jori said, and moved to the table, sinking into the chair across from the man (Prince Goran, Tamsin presumed, for who else could it be?). Her hand brushed Tamsin’s as she passed, and Tamsin blamed the heat for the spark that lit under her skin. They hadn’t touched in four days. She glanced over her shoulder when she was settled, head tilted. _Well? _Asked the arch of her brows, the uncertainty lurking in her eyes for Tamsin alone to see. _Are you coming?_

There would be no turning back. Once she set upon the path, the rest would be lost to time and regret, with nothing left but the road before her. Her hand rested on the pommel of her sword; she closed her eyes and thought of summer, of the static in the air before the storms; of bells and laughing children running down the hill from the temple, of swimming in the lake and too-ripe fruit; of Jori’s lips on hers and hands in her hair, her cold words and terrible beauty in the face of vengeance. It would cost her, following her rebel princess, though what the price was she couldn’t say – it lay in the unknowable future, surely written in ash and blood. She would know it in the days to come.

Tamsin breathed out, once. Then, she stepped into the room, and shut the Green Door behind her.


End file.
